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_ C /.2-X- 

NOAA Estuary-of-the-Month 3 
Seminar Series No. 4 L A ^H 0 , A 

% J 

Ns Cjg /j| tsvg jx 

Boston Harbor and 
Massachusetts Bay: 
Issues, Resources, 

Status and Management 


February 1987 



U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

NOAA Estuarine Programs Office 











t\f$\ONAL 



Boston Harbor and 
Massachusetts Bay: 
Issues, Resources, 
Status and Management 


Proceedings of a Seminar 
Held June 13, 1985 
Washington, D.C. 


U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Malcolm Baldrige, Secretary 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

Anthony J. Calio, Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere 

NOAA Estuarine Programs Office 

Virginia K. Tippie, Director 


Aa/3 


The NOAA Estuarine Programs Office 
and 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

present 


ESTUARY-OF-THE-MONTH-SEMINAR 
BOSTON HARBOR AND MASSACHUSETTS BAY 
ISSUES, RESOURCES, STATUS, AND MANAGEMENT 


June 13, 1985 


U.S. Department of Commerce 
14th and Constitution Avenue, N.W. 
Main Auditorium 
Washington, D.C. 


Edited by 


Betsy Brown 
BATTELLE 


New England Marine Research Laboratory 
397 Washington Street 
Duxbury, MA 02332 


January 15, 1987 




































TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGE 

WELCOME. 1 

Dr. James Thomas, Senior Scientist, Estuarine Programs Office 
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 3 

Dr. Betsy Brown, Principal Research Scientist, 

Battelle New England Marine Research Laboratory. 

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES AND OVERVIEW. 5 

Ms. Kathy Castagna, Project Manager, Water Quality Branch 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region I 

SEWAGE MANAGEMENT. 23 

Ms. Cheryl Breen, Water Quality Coordinator 

Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management. 

FISHERIES: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 31 

Mr. W. Leigh Bridges, Assistant Director, Division of Marine Fisheries 
Massachusetts Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Recreational Vehicles 

STATUS OF THE HABITAT: CHEMICAL CONSIDERATIONS 

Dr. Paul Boehm, Research Leader and Director of Marine Chemistry 

and Geochemistry, Battelle New England Marine Research Laboratory. 61 

Dr. Gordon T. Wallace, Associate Professor, Environmental Sciences Program, 
University of Massachusetts at Boston, Harbor Campus. 37 

HEPATIC HISTOPATHOLOGY OF WINTER FLOUNDER 

FROM BOSTON HARBOR. 77 

Dr. Robert Murchelano, Division Chief, Environmental Processes Division 
Northeast Fisheries Center 

MULTIPLE USES AND MANAGEMENT. 95 

Mr. Richard Delaney, Executive Director, 

Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management 

PANEL DISCUSSION. 103 

PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR BOSTON HARBOR 

AND MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 125 

Dr. Eugene Gallagher, Assistant Professor, Environmental Sciences Program, 
University of Massachusetts at Boston, Harbor Campus 


i 



























WELCOME 


by 

Dr. James Thomas 
Estuarine Programs Office 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
U.S. Department Commerce 
Washington, D.C. 


Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you on behalf of the NOAA 
Estuarine Programs Office and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the fourth 
Estuary-of-the-Month Seminar, entitled Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay: Issues, 
Resources, Status and Management. The purpose of these seminars is to focus attention 
on one estuary at a time, elucidating multiple-use impacts, resources at risk, status and 
trends of an estuary (particularly as a habitat), status and trends of the fisheries, and the 
resources, economics, and management of a particular estuary. 

Estuaries are where humans come in most intimate contact with the marine 
environment with regard to commerce, recreation, and fisheries. Nearly 50 percent of 
the Nation lives within 20 miles of the coast or around the Great Lakes. In 1984, total 
commercial landings of fisheries amounted to $2.5 billion; 70 percent of this amount was 
derived from estuarine-dependent fisheries. 

Thus, it is appropriate that we bring experts here today to inform us of what 
was, what is, and what we might do in terms of management for our nation's estuaries. I 
am pleased to welcome Drs. Betsy Brown and Paul Boehm here today from the Battelle 
New England Marine Research Laboratory located in Duxbury, Massachusetts. I would 
particularly like to thank them for organizing today's seminar. Dr. Brown is a benthic 
ecologist specializing in estuarine and marine environmental monitoring. Dr. Boehm is a 
noted marine organic chemist. Both are knowledgeable experts on Boston Harbor and 
Massachusetts Bay. They will take charge of today's program, including the panel 
discussion at the end of the day. 

I encourage everyone to stay through the panel discussion in order that we 
might learn what data and information gaps exist and what we might do to help improve 
the management of our Nation's estuaries for the mutual benefit of fisheries, commerce 
and recreation. 


1 

















































INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 


by 

Dr. Betsy Brown 

Battelle New England Marine Research Laboratory 
Duxbury, MA 


I want to thank you, Jim, for your help and for being the Washington link in 
organizing today's workshop. We are going to try to stay on schedule today. We have 
designed the program to leave room for discussion and we purposely limited the number of 
speakers to have time for questions and comments. 

In the past few years, Massachusetts Bay and especially Boston Harbor have 
been increasingly in the media both in New England and outside New England's boundaries. 
The public has become aware that Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay are not as 
pristine as we once thought they were. Jn fact, they are considerably stressed by pollution 
and heavy use. 

Just two days ago, The Boston Globe published an editorial entitled "Fifty 
Years of Harbor Pollution," and I brought it here today to read to you. 

"Fifty years ago—it could have been just yesterday—the Massachusetts Senate 
passed a bill prohibiting the pollution of Boston Harbor. 'The bill,' said State Senator 
Edward Carrol during a brief floor debate on the afternoon of June 11th, 1935, 'was 
necessary to protect swimmers in South Boston and Dorchester.' It must have seemed an 
easy task back then. The bill was a simple one prohibiting the discharge of oils and their 
products, refuse, and other materials into the waters of the Harbor. 

"As the current generation of legislators and public officials—not to mention 
swimmers, sailors, and other users of the Harbor—has learned, the task turned out to be 
not that simple. Over the past half-century, everything that Sen. Carroll's bill sought to 
keep out of the waters has been dumped into them—as well as toxic chemical substances 
that were unknown when the bill was filed. Sewer systems were created and treatment 
plants were constructed, beaches were tended, and a park was created out upon the 
Harbor Islands, and still the pollution continued. Studies were made, suits were filed in 
courts, even more pieces of legislation were passed, and still the pollution continued. 

"Now the cost of repairing the ravages of the past half century and protecting 
the waters into the next century is calculated at well over $1 billion. The desirability of a 
clean harbor and the necessity of taking action was seen clearly that afternoon in the 
Massachusetts Senate, 50 years ago. That a half-century has passed and the task remains 
uncompleted should only strengthen the resolve to see it accomplished now." 


3 



This article clearly indicates the need (1) for better definition of sources of 
contamination in the Harbor, the processes driving the Harbor/Bay estuary, and the 
critical links between the Harbor and Bay, and (2) for corrective action to eliminate 
sources of contamination of the Harbor/Bay system. There are numerous potential 
contaminant sources; for example, sewage sludge pumped twice daily into the Harbor, 
combined sewer overflows, industrial sewage with poor pretreatment, non-point sources. 
However, the relative importance and effect of these sources is not well understood. 

The Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay estuary is a very interesting urban 
estuary. The Harbor and Bay have distinctly unique characteristics and yet, they are 
tightly coupled in some ways. Our speakers today will tell you what we know about the 
estuary and will raise many more questions than we have answers for. 


/ 


4 


♦ 


HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES AND OVERVIEW 
by 

Ms. Kathy Castagna 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 
Region I 
Boston, MA 


I would like to say "good morning" to everyone and note that EPA Region I is 
pleased to participate in today’s seminar. My name is Kathy Castagna and I work in EPA's 
Region I as a Project Monitor on the supplemental draft environmental impact statement 
on the siting of wastewater treatment facilities in Boston Harbor. I have been working on 
this project for over 2 years, and Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay is a topic near and 
dear to my heart. The purpose of my talk this morning is to give you a general overview 
and orientation of Massachusetts Bay from several perspectives. I will tell you about the 
geography of the Bay, some demography, history, general environmental parameters, 
pollutant loadings to the Bay, and end with my view of some of the critical issues facing 
Massachusetts Bay. 

Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay are located on the western edge of the 
Gulf of Maine north of Cape Cod (Figure 1). The Bay is an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean 
extending 65 miles along the coast of Massachusetts, southward from Cape Ann to the 
northern border of Cape Cod (Figure 2). The waterways of eastern Massachusetts that 
border Massachusetts Bay consist of Boston Harbor and associated rivers. 

Boston Harbor is a large, relatively shallow complex of bays and tidal estuaries 
covering 47 square miles, with 180 miles of tidal shoreline. Draining into Boston Harbor 
are the Charles River with a length of 80 miles; the Neponset River, with a length of 30 
miles; and the Mystic River with a length of 17 miles. 

Outlying regions along the coast include the rivers and tidal estuarine systems 
of the north and south coastal regions of Massachusetts Bay. The north region includes 
the Ipswich, Pines, and Saugus Rivers as well as Gloucester, Beverly and Salem Harbors. 
The south coastal region consists of the Jones, North, and South Rivers as well as Gulf, 
Cohasset and Scituate Harbors on the south shore. 

Figure 3 gives a better definition of the major rivers draining into Boston 
Harbor. The communities that border Massachusetts Bay begin with Rockport and the 
Cape Ann area and make a semicircular arch southward to Gurnet Point in Duxbury. The 
greater Boston metropolitan area borders Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. Various 
portions of the areas described have been continuously occupied by European settlements 
for more than 350 years. During this time the region has been subjected to ever 
increasing amounts of municipal wastes and other abuses. 


5 



Figure 1. 


O ho loo 2oO 

Location of Boston Harbor. From C.E. Maguire Inc. 


6 















4 






Map of Massachusetts Bay. From C.E. Maguire, Inc. 

7 


Figure 2. 






Figure 3. Major Watersheds Draining to Boston Harbor. From C.E. Maguire, Inc. 


8 








Some of America's oldest towns and cities are located on Massachusetts Bay. 
They include Gloucester, settled in 1623; Salem, settled in 1626; Marblehead, settled in 
1629; and Boston, settled in 1630. As was noted, settlement of Massachusetts Bay Colony 
began in the early 1620s. Groups of English people founded several small communities 
around Massachusetts Bay, to the north of the Plymouth Colony and independent of the 
Pilgrim's Colony, the most important of which was Salem. The next decade of the 1600s 
brought a large influx of Puritans to the area and with their arrival, settlement of 
Massachusetts began. 

In colonial days, fisheries and trade made Boston a major commercial center. 
After the Revolutonary War, ships from Salem and Boston opened lucrative trade routes 
to China. When maritime trade declined in the first years of the 19th century, 
accumulated commercial wealth helped Massachusetts turn to manufacturing. Textiles 
dominated the state's economy until well into the 20th century. After World War II, 
employment in textiles dropped wth a consequent rise in electronics, a science-oriented 
industry that drew on the academic resources of Cambridge and Boston. 

During the period from 1775 through the present, the physical shape of Boston 
Harbor has been drastically altered by filling. The peninsulas of Boston, South Boston and 
Charlestown were originally joined to the mainland by tidal marshes, but have been 
extensively altered by filling. Several islands were leveled and covered over to form what 
is now Logan Airport. Filling connected with the airport alone has reduced the area of 
Boston Harbor by more than 2,000 acres (Figure 4). 

Boston Harbor and environs are rich in military and cultural history. Since 
colonial times, the Harbor's commercial significance has made it important from a 
military defense point of view. Historic forts still exist on many of the Boston Harbor 
Islands and play a role in some present recreation plans for the Harbor. These 
fortifications were constructed at various times during the period following the American 
Revolution through the early 1940s. 

The current population of the Greater Boston Metropolitan Area is 
approximately four million people. The Boston Metropolitan Area has grown 1.4 percent 
since the 1980 U.S. census. Massachusetts Bay and Boston Harbor are important 
recreational resources for this population. The Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay 
environment provides plentiful opportunities to residents and tourists for recreational 
finfishing and lobstering, pleasure boating, and bathing. There are 42 beaches within 
Boston Harbor totaling approximately 19 miles of shoreline (Figure 5). In addition, there 
are numerous anchorages, launching ramps and docking facilities for recreational boats. 
Over three million people in the Greater Boston area live within 25 miles of the Harbor. 
In Boston alone, over 200,000 people live within walking distance of the Harbor and the 
rivers entering the Harbor. 

The Massachusetts legislature enacted the Boston Harbor Islands State Park 
Legislation in the early 1970s. In 1972, the Boston Harbor Islands comprehensive plan 
called for recreational development of the Harbor Islands. The types of activities planned 


o 



SOURCE: MAPC BOSTON HARBOR 

ISLANDS COMPREHENSIVE PLAN 


LEGEND 

□ FILL AREAS 


Figure 4. Alteration of Boston Harbor by Filling - 1775 to Present. From Metcalf and 
Eddy,Inc. 


10 





Figure 5. Major Beaches of Boston Harbor. From C.E. Maguire, Inc. 


11 









for and currently being implemented on some of the Harbor Islands are swimming, 
boating, camping, fishing, nature walks, and picnicking (Figure 6). 

On the economic front, Boston is a major international seaport, in fact, the 
busiest in New England. The Harbor has two deep water shipping lanes, President Roads 
and Nantasket Roads. The port of Boston includes 156 piers, wharfs and docks, and two 
container facilities. 

Other commercial activities in Boston Harbor include finfishing, lobster 
fishing, restricted clam harvesting, and yacht club and marina operations. Lobster is the 
predominant commercial fishery in Boston Harbor. Shellfish beds cover about 4,600 acres 
of Boston Harbor. Half of the area is presently closed to shellfishing because of bacterial 
contamination of the overlying waters. In remaining beds, shellfish may only be harvested 
by licensed master diggers, who must transport the shellfish to a depuration plant where 
shellfish are cleansed prior to sale. A recent estimate of the commercial value of the 
annual harvest of shellfish in the Harbor has been between five and six million dollars. 
Another recent estimate on the potential annual value on closed beds has been 
approximately four million dollars. Overflows and bypasses of raw sewage, poorly treated 
wastewater from treatment facilities, and storm drainage have all been implicated as 
sources of bacterial contamination in shellfishing areas around Boston Harbor (Figure 7). 

The Massachusetts Bay area is also a leader in high technology industries. 
Other important employment industries are education, medical centers, financial 
institutions, government, trade, and service industries. As was noted, shipping and fishing 
are major activities in the Bay as well as tourism in some of the old towns circling the 
Bay. 


Ocean fisheries have been important to Massachusetts 3ay since the earliest 
settlements. The fresh and frozen seafood industries developed in the 20th century with 
the introduction of otter trawling and the quick-freezing process. Flounder, cod, haddock, 
whiting, and ocean perch are the most important fish value. Scallops and shrimp are the 
chief shellfish. Of the two main fishing ports, Gloucester leads in shrimp, whiting, and 
ocean perch, and Boston Harbor in haddock and lobster. 

Manufacturing is the single most important source of wages and salaries 
statewide, although the number of jobs in this category and the share of total employment 
has declined since the end of World War II. Manufacturing still holds an important place 
in Massachusetts with electrical machinery manufacturing ranking first and nonelectrical 
manufacturing ranking second. 

As was indicated, Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay holds a rich cultural 
history and provides diversity in recreational experience and economic activity. This 
same diversity holds true for environmental parameters. Boston Harbor is a 
hydrodynamically complex embayment. Current strength, direction, and patterns are 
determined primarily by tidal stage, tidal amplitude, and locations of islands, channels, 
and shelf areas. Sedimentation patterns are correspondingly complex since sediments 


12 






Outer harbor bountUry of 

' === 5 | TJ^lf \ f Barber Inland* Sbfbe fork 

r^ : f EAST BOSTON ! Xy" ) . _n - - - - —1 Tbft 

aa %.* c—* n / 

AA K ^ te - :77^f 

SOUTH <•* fiotop-M ^f S IS ' ^ ^1 3rtWSferS(4) 

.--Spectre * / 

A.* TViompM*/ 3 ^ ^fieorae^ Is. / 

^ A is. Ay A 7 ^ 

; W ■-</ OSfe&rd 1*. 

"^Moon Is. f ^7 f hull 

A \ >7 ^AFfeddcdes * 9, \\ 

'// \ S £P* f C^7 A \ 

_A A. Muf 1*. SumpWhl^-^\ 

Ja ^ iahete !y^^r 

j*t - StA+«. Ownership ^AA- /A f O/ hinghamaA 

S^ar^d Boston A/Ai A' wr" 

- Islands a^uirnsd. by £^7s* \ p* 

DEM as part- of S+nic. ‘ T I 

Pat-Ic {'also includes Green \i weymouthV/ 

Racoon ^ hicxn^/nan'S Island J J/'- A 

c?ooYcc •• ; fAAPA 



Figure 6. Boston Harbor Islands. From C.E. Maguire, Inc. 


13 




14 


Figure 7. Shellfish Beds in Boston Harbor. From C.E. Maguire, Inc. 









observed at a given sampling station observed are mostly the function of the ambient 
hydrographic regime. Sediments in Massachusetts Bay are very heterogeneous. A 1984 
survey (Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) 301(h) application) documents gravel and 
cobble deposits over much of the surveyed area. The Massachusetts Bay's extensive 
gravel deposits are glacial in origin. 

Circulation in Massachusetts Bay results from tidal forces, wind-induced 
motion, and other factors such as the Earth's rotational and atmospheric pressure 
variations. The circulation is generally counterclockwise, and winds are typically offshore 
from the west. 

Water depths in 3oston Harbor outside the navigation channels range from 10 
to 15 feet at mean low water. Depths of nearly 90 feet occur in the channel at President 
Roads. The mean tidal rise and fall of Boston Harbor is approximately 9.5 feet. 
Maximum currents have been noted at Hull Gut at 2.6 knots during ebb tide and in 
President Roads at 2 knots both during ebb and flood tides (Figure 8). 

Boston Harbor sediments have been found to contain high concentrations of 
heavy metals, particularly in the Inner Harbor and northern area of the Outer Harbor. 
Under the Massachusetts criteria for the classification of dredge or fill material, most of 
the Harbor's sediments would be classified under category two or three. These sediments 
are therefore subject to a more thorough evaluation with respect to biological impacts of 
dredging or filling than that which is required with class one material. 

Data on Boston Harbor sediment characteristics suggest that high 
concentrations of metals found in the Outer Harbor are associated with fine-grained 
sediments and organic matter. The limited data on the toxic organic compounds DDT and 
polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) suggest that they are also associated with fine-grained 
sediments and organic deposits. 

The reported concentrations of toxic metals and synthetic organics in Harbor 
sediments are of concern due to the potential for bioaccumulation in organisms dependent 
on benthic organisms as a food source. Flounder and lobster tissues throughout the Harbor 
have been found to contain these toxic chemicals in varying concentrations. Sediments in 
the Harbor, particularly in its northern parts, are finer overall and have a higher organic 
fraction than those outside the Harbor. There also appears to be evidence of enrichment 
of metals in the most recent sediment layers in some areas of Massachusetts Bay. In 
general, coastal stations and the stations to the south and west of the foul area in 
Massachusetts Bay show elevated levels of metals in the sediments. 

In the area of water quality, even though most waters in Boston Harbor meet 
the water quality standards established by the Massachusetts Division of Water Pollution 
Control, Harbor waters have higher concentration of pollutants than are found offshore in 
Massachusetts Bay. Water quality around the Outer Harbor islands and in Hingham Bay is 
the highest in the Harbor. 


15 



Figure S. General Tidal Circulation in Vicinity of Existing and Alternative Outfall 
Sites. From C.E. Maguire, Inc. 


16 









In contrast, the waters in the northern area of the Harbor, north and west of 
Long Island, often have the highest concentrations of pollutants. Inner Harbor waters, 
northwest of Castle Island, and other nearshore waters frequently fail to meet the 
minimum water quality standards. Periodic sewer overflows result in nearshore violations 
of standards in Dorchester and Quincy Bays and in Belle Isle Inlet. 

Boston Harbor supports a diverse community of marine organisms. However, 
the composition of benthic communities in the Inner Harbor, Deer Island/Governor's Island 
Flats, and Dorchester Bay indicates environmental stress. As noted, fin erosion has been 
found in winter flounder populations throughout the Harbor. 

A wide variety of marine mammals and endangered species frequent 
Massachusetts Bay: the right whale, humpback whale, fin whale and the pilot whales; 
leather-back and loggerhead sea turtles; Atlantic white-sided dolphin, harbor porpoise and 
harbor seal. Stellwagen Bank and Jeffrey's Ledge, both within Massachusetts Bay, are 
prime feeding grounds for many of the above species, particularly endangered fin, 
humpback, and right whales. Benthic communities in Massachusetts Bay are spatially 
variable. Benthic communities appear to be unimpacted by pollutant inputs from recent 
surveys, but highly variable because of substrate heterogeneity. 

The major pollutant discharges to Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay fall 
into the following categories: municipal discharges, sewage sludge, combined sewer 
overflows (CSOs), individual industrial discharges, and the foul area. Municipal 
wastewater discharges originate from 13 permitted dischargers with a total design flow of 
541 million gallons per day (mgd) bordering Massachusetts Bay. The 13 communities are 
Rockport, Gloucester, Manchester, Salem, South Essex Sewerage District, Swampscott, 
Lynn, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA), the city of Boston's Long Island 
Hospital, Hull, Cohasset, Scituate, and Marshfield. Of these, the MWRA is the largest 
discharger with an average daily flow of approximately 465 mgd, of which 9.4 percent is 
industrial flow totaling 44 mgd. 

The other major municipal discharges in the area are the South Essex 
Sewerage District, as noted, which produces 41 mgd, with 40 percent industrial flow. 
Lynn contributes 25.8 mgd to Massachusetts Bay, of which 4 percent is industrial flow and 
Gloucester contributes 7.4 mgd with a 25 percent flow from fish processing industry and 5 
percent from industry. Hull and Swampscott contribute 3 and 0.2 mgd, respectively, in 
primarily domestic flows. 

I would like to briefly mention the status of the waivers for secondary 
treatment requirements from municipal discharges into Massachusetts Bay pursuant to 
section 301(h) of the Clean Water Act. There have been five applications filed for 
discharge into Massachusetts Bay; of these, the status is as follows: 

1. MDC (now the MWRA): A final decision for denial of that waiver 

was issued in April 1985. The reason for denial was impact on 

biological communities and dissolved oxygen violations projected. 


17 


2. South Essex Sewerage District: A tentative approval was reversed 
to a tentative denial in May 1985. The reason being the inadequate 
assessment of adverse impacts on recreation. Reapplication is 
expected on November 1, 1986. 

3. City of Lynn: A tentative approval was reached in October 1982, 
and EPA is currently reviewing public comments on that approval. 

The waiver application tentatively was denied in 1985. The City of 
Lynn withdrew its intention to reapply in January 1986. 

4. City of Gloucester: A final approval was issued in June 1984. 

5. Town of Swampscott: A decision is pending and will be announced 
by the end of this month. Waiver application denied tentatively in 
March 1985. Town of Swampscott intends to reapply by November 
1, 1986. 

( 

Another source of discharges into the Bay is individual industries. A recent 
reading from our permit files in EPA Region I suggests that approximately 15 individual 
industries discharge into the Massachusetts Bay. This represents a very insignificant 
percentage of the industrial flows in the region. Most of the industries discharge into the 
municipal wastewater treatment facilities of their corresponding cities. As was 
mentioned, the MWRA is the largest municipal discharger in Massachusetts Bay. The 
major pollutant loadings into Boston Harbor from the MWRA system are treated effluent, 
sewage sludge, combined sewer overflows, and dry weather overflows (Figure 9). The 
other pollutant sources to Boston Harbor unrelated to the MDC system are storm water, 
urban runoff, and pollution loadings from the major tributary rivers of the Charles, Mystic 
and Neponset (Figure 3). 

One final source of material impacting Massachusetts Bay is the foul area. 
The foul dumping area site is located 9.3 nautical miles northwest of Boston Light Ship. It 
has been routinely used for dumping miscellaneous chemicals since 1917. Safety Projects 
and Engineering, Inc. (SPE) dumped waste chemicals at the site from hospitals, schools, 
and industry from 1963 through 1976. 

From 1973 through 1976, dumping took place pursuant to ocean dumping 
permits issued by EPA Region I. During this time SPE dumped 933 containers holding over 
4,800 gallons of chemicals. From 1946 through 1970, 4,000 containers of low-level 
radioactive waste licensed by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission were also deposited in 
the foul area. A single manifest from February of 1976 indicates that material brought to 
the foul area included 21 chemicals known to be carcinogenic, mutagenic, or neoplastic; 
25 halogenated organic compounds; and numerous toxic heavy metal compounds. SPE’s 
dumping at the site ceased 3 or 9 years ago. Under the Marine Protection, Research, and 
Sanctuaries Act permits, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) continues to dump and 
approve dumping of dredge spoils at the regional site. The area has EPA interim 


18 



Figure 9. Point Source Discharges to Boston Harbor. From C.E. Maguire, Inc. 


19 




designation for dredge spoil disposal. The New England Division of the COE recently has 
been monitoring the area as part of their DAMOS Project. 


Recently estimated loadings from all sources for the following pollutants into 
Massachusetts Bay are listed below: 

SOURCE TONS PER YEAR 


PCBs 4,400 

Chlorinated hydrocarbons 2,100 

Petroleum hydrocarbons 1,760 

Cadmium 88 

Copper 1,760 


The critical issues that face Massachusetts Bay as perceived from EPA's point 
of view are the following: 

1. Cumulative impacts of large municipal wastewater discharges 
relative to the loadings of metals, toxic contaminant, and 
organic enrichment. 

2. The incidence of fish disease throughout the Bay and possible 
indications of stressed biological communities within 
Massachusetts Bay and Boston Harbor. 

3. The cleanup of Boston Harbor, of which the following speakers 
will give much more detail. 


EPA Region I feels that a constituency that transcends localized interest 
needs to be developed for the environmental issues facing Boston Harbor and 
Massachusetts Bay . 

I would like to thank you, and I will be happy to take some time for questions. 


Question and Answer Discussion 

Dr. Brown: What do you think the best route would be to develop such a 
constituency in the next two years? 

K. Castagna: Well, as you mentioned in introductory remarks, there's been a 
tremendous amount of media attention on the cleanup of Boston Harbor. I think what 
would be useful is more public information on the interaction of Boston Harbor and 
Massachusetts Bay and how the Harbor and the state of pollution in the Harbor affect the 
Bay on the whole. The Bay, itself, is conceived of as a regional resource, and as we noted, 
many beaches and recreational facilities are in both the Harbor and the Bay itself. 


20 


I think people understand Boston Harbor pollution levels right now. There's 
been a lot of media attention on that. If there was more understanding of the interaction 
between Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay, we might have a better constituency for a 
Save-The-Bay type of group. 

There is a lot of interest in the Boston Harbor, but localized interest seems to 
be on where facilities will be sited and the impacts on the community from a land use 
point of view. There's less of a constituency out there for overall environmental 
protection of the Bay and the Harbor. 

Dr. Cahn: Were those NOAA Ocean Assessment Division's assessments that 
you gave based on just the last couple of years, five-year spread, or per year? 

K. Castagna: I think they are based on information from several years. 

Question: What is the status of the EIS you're preparing for Boston Harbor? 

K. Castagna: EPA Region I published a supplemental draft jointly with the 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts in December of 1984. The final EIS was issued in 
December 1985 and that will resolve the siting of the new wastewater treatment facilities 
for the MWRA. The next speaker is going to give a detailed discussion of the challenges 
of the siting decision for MWRA and EPA. Thank you very much. 


21 














' 







SEWAGE MANAGEMENT 


by 

Ms. Cheryl Breen 

Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management* 
Boston, MA 


I think Kathy Castagna has given us an excellent overview of Boston Harbor 
and Massachusetts Bay, and I would like to focus on one category of the direct discharges 
that she mentioned, the municipal sewage treatment plants, which are major contributors 
of pollutant loading into the marine environment. Specifically, I would like to discuss the 
wastewater collection and treatment system of the Metropolitan District Commission 
(MDC) (now the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority) because it is by far the largest 
of the systems discharging into Massachusetts Bay and its history can offer insight into 
the complexity of sewage management issues. Basically, I feel that if we can successfully 
solve the problems in Boston Harbor, we will perhaps be able to solve sewage treatment 
problems almost anywhere else. 

As Kathy mentioned, there are 13 municipal treatment plants which discharge 
to estuaries and marine waters along the coast of Massachusetts Bay. Many of these, 
however, are very small systems which discharge between one and three million gallons of 
sewage a day. The occurrence of occasional disruptions in the operation of these plants, 
or worse, chronic lack of compliance with discharge permit effluent limitations can 
create dramatic impacts on nearshore waters. These illegal discharges can lead to 
localized problems such as closure of shellfish beds and swimming beaches. These types 
of events should not be ignored; but especially if the plants receive little industrial flow, 
they cannot be compared to the impacts on Boston Harbor created by the major facilities 
of the MDC system. 

Of all the treatment plants discharging into Massachusetts Bay, MDC is 
responsible for contributing about 85 percent of the combined total flows. The MDC 
serves an area of 43 cities and towns in the Boston metropolitan area. It provides its 
service by operating two primary treatment plants located on Deer Island and Nut Island 
in Boston Harbor. The total flow from these plants, as Kathy mentioned, is approximately 
465 million gallons per day (mgd). In addition to the effluent discharged, the system also 
contains 108 combined sewer overflow points which discharge primarily during wet 
weather events, although some discharge even during dry weather. The most dramatic of 
the discharges from the MDC system is the discharge of sewage sludge. Once the sludge 
is separated from the effluent during the treatment process, it is put back in with the 
effluent and discharged on the outgoing tides. 

♦Current Address: Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, Boston, MA 


23 


The MDC has been plagued by a number of management issues that have 
remained unresolved for the last ten to fifteen years. Basically, it has been a case study 
of management at its worst. The management issues that are most outstanding involve 
three areas: (1) determination of a level of treatment that the MDC facilities will 
provide, (2) the siting of new treatment facilities, and (3) the disposal of sewage sludge. 

There have been many reasons for the delay in resolving these issues, but I feel 
that four of them are most pertinent. The first is simply the magnitude of the system. 
The service area is so large that to resolve the issues takes more time than it would if you 
were dealing with smaller systems that discharge 1 to 3 mgd. Secondly, the issues have 
been the subject of a great deal of public controversy that has impeded reaching 
decisions. It has been difficult reaching a consensus as to compliance with the 
environmental regulations and to equitable distribution of responsibility in providing 
sewage services for the 43 communities. Another important factor in the delay has been 
that during the last 10 to 15 years, environmental impact assessments have changed as the 
various regulatory requirements have been revised both for water quality and air quality. 
Lastly, in the intervening years, new scientific information has prompted better and 
different management decisions. 

Now I would like to discuss three of the main management issues that have 
been prominant in the Boston Harbor cleanup effort, including a chronology of events and 
a brief update of more recent developments. First, a long history involving the 301(h) 
waiver process has determined the level of treatment that the MDC facilities should 
provide. The MDC applied for its initial waiver from secondary treatment requirements 
in 1979. Following this application, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 
requested that the MDC submit more technical information on the assessment of potential 
biological impacts. This information was provided in 1982. Following analysis of this 
supplemental information, EPA issued a tentative denial of the application in 1983 based 
on questions of whether the primary discharge would be able to meet dissolved oxygen 
requirements and whether it would also adversely impact benthic organisms in the marine 
environment near the proposed effluent discharge site. 

When faced with this decision, the MDC exercised its right under the 301(h) 
administrative regulations to reapply for a waiver and submitted a revised application. 
This revised application, submitted in 1984, included a new deep-ocean outfall site at a 
different location than proposed in the first application. In April 1985, the EPA again 
issued a tentative denial for basically the same reasons that it denied the first 
application. We see that just to resolve the level of treatment the plants are to provide 
has taken six years. Now that the tentative denial has been issued, EPA will next issue a 
draft discharge permit. At this stage, there will be opportunity for public comment and 
for the MDC to contest the denial decision. Ultimately, the drafting of the permit is 
what will determine the level of treatment required and specifically, what effluent 
limitations the MDC system will have to meet. 


24 


Once the level of treatment has been determined, the second major 
management issue is the siting of new treatment plants. The adequacy of the MDC 
system has been studied for quite a few years. Beginning in 1968, the MDC undertook its 
first comprehensive management study of the metropolitan region to see how and in what 
manner its two wastewater treatment facilities could be upgraded. 

In an unusual sequence of events, EPA determined that it would be useful to 
draft an environmental impact statement at this point in time, although the 
environmental review process usually follows actual facilities planning. The draft siting 
of treatment facilities was completed in 1978, and though information was updated and 
further refined during a site options study conducted in 1982, no final environmental 
impact statement was ever issued. In 1983, both EPA and the state agreed that because 
so many years had elapsed, it was time to determine once and for all where the new 
facilities should be located, if, in fact, the locations were to change from what they 
currently are. A joint environmental impact statement and an environmental impact 
report that would satisfy both Federal and state environmental review regulations was 
undertaken, completed in December 1984, and put out for public review in February 1983. 
This report analysed all the past reports, reviewed all the old siting options, and added a 
few new ones. The initial 22 different siting options were winnowed down to eight 
remaining viable options, that were presented and fully evaluated in the draft report. At 
the time, it was felt that because the waiver decision had yet to be resolved, the draft 
would include siting options for both primary and secondary treatment. The decision for 
selection of a site could then proceed rapidly after the waiver decision was issued. 

The choices involved in the siting of MDC wastewater treatment facilities 
essentially include evaluating the placement of facilities on three islands in Boston 
Harbor: the two that are now occupied, Deer Island and Nut Island, and one that lies right 
in the middle, Long Island. If the MDC proceeds to contest the waiver decision and that 
decision is ultimately overturned, the sites would include long deep-ocean outfalls. The 
outfall that was proposed in the 301(h) application extended approximately 9 miles out 
into Massachusetts Bay. If a secondary treatment option is chosen, the outfalls will be 
located closer to Boston Harbor, but probably not in their current positions. It was 
unusual that a preferred alternative was not selected when the draft EIS was issued. The 
current plan is for EPA, the MDC, and the Commonwealth to make a joint announcement 
July 10th, 1983 on a preferred siting alternative. Following this announcement, the EPA 
and the MDC will be able to proceed with completion of a final EIS and a final 
environmental impact report; this will ultimately lead to a recommended decision that 
should put to rest the whole question of where the sites for the new treatment plants will 
be located to rest once and for all. 

The third important management issue that I wanted to discuss is sludge 
disposal, which has a lengthy chronology similar to the siting issue. Sludge management 
studies began in 1971 when the first major circulation model for the Harbor was 
developed. Following this, a draft and final EIS were prepared. In 1980, EPA issued a 
decision on the recommended disposal option. This was something that was not able to be 
accomplished in the siting process. 


25 


An update to all the prior sludge disposal evaluations was performed in 1982. 
The end result of these reports was that incineration was cited as the recommended 
alternative for disposal of MDC sludge. I might mention, however, that the Federal 
environmental impact reports were not deemed as providing an adequate assessment of 
alternatives under the Massachusetts environmental regulations, so there was no final 
concurrence on the recommended alternative by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

The basic problem was that while all the studies were being conducted from 
1971 through 1982, there was a concurrent change in the air quality regulations and 
permissible air emissions limits. During this time, new regulations were being proposed 
which dealt with toxic substances in air, especially at the state level. Massachusetts 
began to undertake a program whereby it would create its own state guidelines for these 
substances. 


At this point in 1982, the sludge management issue had yet to be resolved. 
Some people felt, in fact, that it could not be resolved until the waiver and siting 
decisions were made, because each of those decisions^placed different restraints on what 
options are available for sludge management. The most recent event impacting sludge 
management occurred in July 1984, when EPA issued an administrative order to the MDC. 
EPA felt, as everyone did, that plans to cease discharge of sludge to Boston Harbor were 
not moving along quite quickly enough. In response to that order, the MDC has chosen a 
specific plan to expedite sludge management, involving both interim and long-term 
initiatives. The long-term facilities plan, which will look at a whole array of disposal 
options, will begin in July 1985. The interim options have already been the subject of a 
study and include ways of disposing only the sludge currently produced by the existing 
treatment facilities, not sludge that will be produced once new facilities are constructed. 
The options include disposing of the sludge at either existing landfills or existing 
incinerators, composting it through a pilot facility that is now located on Deer Island, or 
disposing it in the ocean at the 106-Mile Site off the coast of New York and New Jersey. 
To summarize, the three issues which created quite a logjam of activity in 1983 were 
decisions on (1) the level of wastewater treatment, (2) where the plant(s) would be 
located, and (3) how to dispose of sludge. 

One event helping break the logjam was that one of the Harbor communities, 
the city of Quincy, filed a suit against the MDC and the Commonwealth for pollution of 
Boston Harbor. Though the actual contents of the suit were very narrow and specific to 
Quincy's concerns, the suit resulted in a schedule ordered by the state court and a court- 
appointed master to oversee that schedule. The schedule was developed in cooperation 
with a number of state environmental agencies and EPA. The work resulted in a 
comprehensive schedule to deal with upgrading the treatment plants, fixing some 
problems with combined sewage overflows (CSOs), and decreasing infiltration and inflow 
into the treatment system. 

By far, the greatest result of this court action was that the Massachusetts 
legislature passed a bill creating a new Massachusetts Water Resources Authority 


26 


(MWRA). The MWRA bill was passed in December of 1984 and became effective July 1, 
1985, with the MDC's Water and Sewerage Divisions being transferred from the state to 
an independent Authority. This is an important event because the new Authority will 
come out from under the constraints of state bureaucracy and be able to raise its own 
bonds for funding projects and to hiring more staff. Basically, the bill gives the Authority 
fewer constraints on management of their wastewater treatment system. 

The new MWRA Board of Directors has been appointed, and a transition team 
has been hired. Although the Authority will not officially take over until July 1, 1985, the 
MWRA Board has already taken a number of initiatives to solve the problems in Boston 
Harbor. They will be involved in the negotiations of the new National Pollutant Discharge 
Elimination System (NPDES) permit. They are very actively involved now in determining 
the siting for the new wastewater and treatment facilities and will be making an 
announcement with EPA on July 10, 1985, on the preferred location. And as I mentioned, 
a number of contracts are underway to determine what can be done with sludge in the 
interim as well as long-term. 

In addition, the Authority's other priorities include fixing the CSOs that 
currently affect many of the swimming beaches and shellfish beds. Most importantly, 
effort is being put into greater enforcement of the pretreatment program that the MDC 
had already initiated. The pretreatment program is one that has received Federal 
approval, but basically has suffered, as have most of the other components of the 
treatment system, from lack of funding and staff. 

I will just mention one recent event. Despite the efforts of the legislature to 
create the new Authority and of the new Authority to take up its initiatives as soon as 
possible, a Federal court suit has been filed. The EPA felt that it would be best to move 
the schedule created under the state court suit into the Federal court, so that it could 
cover more topics and give all the pertinent agencies a schedule to live by, for the next 10 
to 15 years. It will probably take that long to get the new treatment system designed, 
constructed, and operating. 

The point is that the Boston Harbor and MDC experience is a learning 
experience that comes from making mistakes upon mistakes. We realize when analyzing 
the MDC problem that we need more effective planning for sewage management for all 
treatment plants throughout the Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. We have to make sewage 
management a priority for planning, especially as it relates to future development. 
Development cannot continue without adequate infrastructure or sewage treatment. 
Finally, I think we also need to assess all aspects of the sewage system: the effluent, the 
sludge, the combined sewer overflows, and the industrial inputs. If we can learn anything 
from the Boston Harbor experience and apply it to other coastal treatment plants, then it 
will all have been worth it. 

I would like to close by saying that, in my opinion, the Boston Harbor situation 
should improve following the advent of the new MWRA, but it will be important for the 


27 


MWRA to also be involved in a broader management perspective for the Harbor and Bay. 
If we consider that the Harbor and the Bay have a number of specific inputs and that we 
are looking at the marine resource as a whole, then any decisions that the MWRA makes, 
either on what level of treatment it will provide or where it will put the treatment plants, 
will impact the other wastewater treatment facilities. 

The MWRA will have an interest in monitoring Boston Harbor to see if any 
improvement in Boston Harbor's water quality can be charted. Any monitoring that the 
Authority undertakes should be closely coordinated with monitoring efforts being 
conducted either by other treatment facilities or other environmental programs. 

In making a suggestion for a broad program, I think there are a lot of examples 
that we can draw from, especially the Chesapeake Bay area and Seattle, Washington, 
where there was an aggressive program for source control of toxic substances. These are 
the types of examples that we have to use, so we can determine if all sewage treatment 
plants are being put to the same level of standards for cleaning up their effluents and so 
that information is exchanged. In this way, we can get a total picture of whether we are 
achieving any improvement in the Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. 

Question and Answer Discussion 

Question: I would suggest that from what I hear that you may be making the 
same set of mistakes all over again in the following sense~you are proposing, from what I 
hear, that there be an announcement next month of a site or perhaps two sites for the 
treatment plant. Yet at the same time you're saying that there is a set of underlying 
issues, such as overflow, infiltration, inflow, direct discharges into the Harbor. It seems 
to me that you are very much in danger of moving towards heavy hardware solutions that 
are simply not going to solve your problems. All you're going to be doing is taking huge 
amounts of water, up to 90 percent of it for some sort of inflow, and putting it through 
treatment plants that you have built to handle huge capacities, and yet you are not going 
to really be solving the Harbor problem. You'll just be meeting EPA requirements of 
certain standards. So aren't you just repeating the same sets of mistakes that you made 
before here? 

C. Breen: I may not have been clear on that point. First of all, the two 
treatment plants that are now existing are not functioning well at all. In fact, despite the 
delay in an ultimate siting decision, EPA has agreed to fund immediate improvements to 
the plants because we know that it's going to take seven to ten years to design and 
construct new treatment facilities. 

Regardless of the other sources of pollution, something has to be done to 
create new treatment facilities for the system. Something that I just touched upon is the 
infiltration and inflow problem that you mentioned. It was a component of the state court 
suit, and as part of the remedy of that suit, the state department of environmental quality 


28 


engineering has now designed a very aggressive infiltration and inflow program. This 
state agency is responsible for granting construction grants to the different communities. 

Under this program, grants for construction are contingent upon a certain 
removal level of infiltration and inflow into the local system. I think it's fair to say that 
the problem is being attacked on all sides. I was just focusing on what I feel are the three 
major areas in sewage management. Infiltration and inflow is a major component, and we 
do currently also have eight priority combined sewer overflow projects that are in various 
stages of design and construction. 

Dr. Brown: Given the large volume of sewage coming into the Harbor, a 
number of people have suggested that, as an alternative to siting a plant in one place, 
multiple plants be constructed, with the various townships picking up more responsibility 
for them—for instance, locating plants at Reading and out towards Needham, rather than 
one plant having several secondary treatment plants. Why was that option not 
considered? 


C. Breen: What is termed the satellite treatment plant option, whereby 
smaller plants would be located further west in the Metropolitan District, is one of the 
options that was analyzed in the supplemental EIS on siting. It was determined, however, 
that those types of facilities could not meet the water quality criteria for the different 
rivers into which they would discharge. 

Now that it has gone through the siting process once, I think the MWRA knows 
that in the future if it needs to expand its facilities, will definitely have to look at the 
construction of new facilities elsewhere than in the Harbor. 

When the new facilities are constructed, they will be constructed with a 
certain design life, usually about a 20-year operation life. When new facilities planning 
must be undertaken, the Authority will be looking at options that deal not with just 
whatever sites it picks now, but possibly other sites. We will need to develop treatment 
plants at other sites that will meet water quality regulations, when at this juncture they 
could not. It may involve advanced waste treatment options or something of that nature. 

Dr. Brown: If constructing satellite treatment plants is going to become 
necessary in the future, then planning for them needs to be started now, because in 20 
years we will again be overtaxing a wastewater treatment system that we create now. 


29 


N 







































FISHERIES: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 
by 

Mr. W. Leigh Bridges 
Division of Marine Fisheries 
Massachusetts Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and 
Recreational Vehicles 
Boston, MA 

Massachusetts has a long history in fisheries. In Boston Harbor, it dates back to 
colonial times, to the 1620s. When Squantum Point was first settled, people began 
clamming and lobstering. Since that time the fishing community has grown in 
Massachusetts, particularly in Boston Harbor. During World War II, Boston fishermen 
landed over 200,000,000 pounds of fish on an annual basis, and Boston was the major 
processing and distribution center in New England. 

More recently, Boston has diminished as an offshore port. The landings have 
declined to 20,000,000 pounds and fishing vessels have moved to other ports. However, 
Boston remains a processing and distribution center. Massachusetts fishermen statewide 
land about 350,000,000 pounds of fish a year, which is worth approximately $1.5 billion on 
an annual basis to the state's economy. 

The three major fisheries within the Harbor are the lobster fishery, the shellfish 
fishery, and the recreational finfish fishery. In 1983, the lobster fishery, consisting of 
approximately 120 lobster fishermen, landed about 3,000,000 pounds of lobster and was 
valued at $7.3 million (Nash, 1984). The recreational finfish fishery consists primarily of 
a winter flounder sport fishery located throughout the Harbor, but principally in Quincy 
Bay. The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) surveyed this fishery in 1975 
and determined that there were about 166,000 angler trips in the sport fishery in Boston 
Harbor in 1975. Utilizing that number of angler trips and applying the value of an angler 
day from the National Hunting and Fishing Survey in 1980, DMF estimates that the 
recreational finfish fishery in Boston Harbor is presently worth about $4 million annually. 

Finally, the third largest fishery within the Harbor itself is the shellfish fishery. 
While about 4,700 productive acres of shellfish flats could support a commercial fishery, 
about 2,800 acres are open at any one time to restricted harvesting of shellfish. The 
State allows Master Diggers and Subordinate Diggers under a special permit program to 
harvest shellfish from moderately contaminated shellfish areas and to transport those 
shellfish to the Purification Plant in Newburyport. There they are depurated over a 48- 
hour period to reduce the coliform bacteria so they can be marketed. Last year, DMF 
processed just under 50,000 bushels of clams from Boston Harbor, valued at $2 million. A 
conservative estimate on the annual value of all harvested fishery resources in Boston 
Harbor is $13 million. 

DMF has conducted many biological studies throughout the State in the last 20 
years. In the early 1960s and 1970s, we collected and published baseline fishery and water 


quality information in 20 estuaries. In 1978, after the Fishery Conservation and 
Management Act was passed, DMF changed its emphasis and began to collect fishery 
resource information or stock assessment information from our coastal waters. Although 
we started the resource stock assessment program in 1979 to obtain relative abundance 
information on important commercial fisheries in our coastal waters, we began to look at 
external diseases on these fish throughout our coastal sampling. 

As a result of that work, we have examined about 1,740 fish to date from sampling 
sites located within one-half mile outside of Boston Harbor. Outside Boston Harbor, the 
incidence of external diseases, including fin rot, skeletal abnormalities, lymphocystis, and 
other external lesions, is 1.8 percent. One-third of disease incidence was fin rot (DMF 
unpublished). In comparison to data collected offshore by the National Marine Fisheries 
Service (NMFS) in their groundfish surveys throughout the Northeast, we find that the 1.8 
percent incidence rate is double the offshore rate. In the 105,000 fish collected and 
examined offshore by NMFS, the incidence rate \^as 0.99 percent (Despres-Patanjo et al., 
1982). 


During our routine 1983 sampling operation to collect information on lobsters, we 
examined 272 lobsters for external diseases, principally black gill and shell disease at 12 
sites along the Massachusetts coast. The two areas with the highest incidence were 
Boston and New Bedford Harbor. Both are heavily polluted with organic substances and 
metals. Black gill disease in New Bedford occurred in 54 percent of those animals 
examined, and shell disease in 50 percent. Lobsters outside of Boston Harbor showed a 33 
percent incidence of black gill disease and a 12.5 percent incidence of shell disease 
(Estrella, 1984). 

In February 1984, DMF was contacted by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone 
Management with a proposal to collect winter flounder in Boston Harbor in conjunction 
with the NMFS. The Office of Coastal Zone Management was interested in examining 
internal diseases, principally neoplasias on the liver of winter flounder, because Dr. 
Murchelano had been studying the same phenomenon offshore and found little or no 
incidence of neoplasia in flounder or other fish offshore. We agreed to obtain samples of 
winter flounder for NMFS and work with them on a brief study just to see if, in fact, 
neoplasia was occurring in Boston Harbor. I believe the information was also used as part 
of the State's review of the 301(h) waiver document that was prepared by Metcalf and 
Eddy for the Metropolitan District Commission. 

The first sampling of fish occurred in April 1984. We sampled 100 fish: 50 from off 
of Long Island in Boston Harbor, and another 50 fish from Deer Island Flat, which is just 
southeast of the Logan Airport area. Twenty percent of all of those fish showed gross 
liver lesions; eight percent, after histological examination by Dr. Murchelano, proved to 
be cancerous and showed extreme neoplasia. Subsequent sampling on June 26 of another 
100 fish in one sample from the Deer Island area showed exactly the same incidence of 
gross lesions and neoplasia (Murchelano and Wolke, 1985). 


32 


This was surprising because Dr. Murchelano had found a 3.4 percent incidence of 
neoplasia but no gross lesions in a sample of fish in upper Narragansett Bay and New 
Haven Harbor, I believe. He also subsequently found one fish out of 77 taken off Salem 
Harbor to have the same neoplasia. I do not believe that any other estuary along the U.S. 
East Coast has a higher incidence of carcinoma in fish than has been shown by these two 
samples from Boston Harbor. 

We conducted further sampling in January 1985 and obtained only 13 fish, principally 
because the winter flounder were in deep water outside the Harbor at the time and were 
not available to sampling gear within the Harbor. One of these 13 fish had neoplasia. We 
sampled an additional 36 fish on March 14, 1985. Sixty-four percent of the March 14 
sampling displayed gross lesions and 42 percent had hepatic neoplasia. 

Because tomcod have displayed hepatic carcinoma in the Hudson River, we 
examined tomcod from the Weir River which drains into Boston Harbor. We sent 54 livers 
to Dr. Murchelano from samples taken in January 1985, and we found no gross liver lesions 
nor neoplasia in tomcod. The tomcod is basically a year-round, brackish water resident in 
the estuary, usually confined to depths of less than 20 feet. Remaining in the mouths of 
the small tributaries that drain into Boston Harbor, the tomcod possibly would be subject 
to some of the same environmental conditions that the winter flounder are, except that it 
has different feeding habits and much shorter life span. 

We were also able to look at 16 of the winter flounder at random from the second 
sampling in Boston Harbor collected on June 26, 1984. We analyzed both the flesh and the 
livers separately for presence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to get a comparison of 
what the levels might be in both the flesh and the livers. The analyses of the flesh showed 
a range from nondetectable PCB concentrations to a level of 1.6 parts per million (ppm), 
with an average of 0.4 ppm. However, livers from the same fish ranged from 5.1 ppm of 
PCBs to a high of 19.9 ppm of PCBs, with a mean of 10.4 ppm. 

Another area where in concert with Dr. Murchelano, we have looked for neoplasia, is 
New Bedford Harbor. On May 15, 1984, we collected 25 winter flounder and 24 
windowpane flounder from New Bedford Harbor. We felt that because New Bedford 
Harbor is highly contaminated with PCBs, the flounder might display the same symptoms. 
However, according to Dr. Murchelano, there were no gross liver lesions in any of the 
windowpane or winter flounder, and no neoplasia in any of those fish. It should be noted, 
however, that a sample collected in May 1985 revealed some winter flounder with hepatic 
necrosis, which was non-neoplastic. 

Briefly, the cause of neoplasia in winter flounder is unknown, but the possibility 
exists that polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), PCBs or synergistic action between 
several chemicals, including heavy metals, may prove to be involved. The only similar 
instance is in Puget Sound on the West Coast, where neoplasia in English sole and crabs 
occurred for about five years. Dr. Malins from the Seattle NMFS Laboratory has 
statistically related that situation to the high incidence of PAHs in the sediments of 
Puget Sound. The PAH contamination is caused by a military fuel depot and a creoste 
manufacturing plant. 


33 


Dr. Malins has also induced neoplasia in salmon by injecting pyro-a-benzene. He 
found that when PAHs in the Puget Sound sediments reach a level of 500 parts per billion, 
he almost always sees carcinoma in the English sole (Malins et al., 1984). High levels of 
PAHs have also been found in polychaete worms living in these sediments. Polychaete 
worms are the principal food of the English sole. 

Clearly, the Boston Harbor situation needs further study—it needs a comprehensive 
study. Unless we know or have an idea of the source of the PAHs or the compounds that 
may be causing this phenomenon, remedial actions will not be possible. The long-term 
future of Boston Harbor environment and fisheries may depend on how we respond to the 
problem now. A cooperative effort by state and federal agencies, as well as the private 
sector, will be needed to adequately address the problem. 

Question and Answer Discussion 

Question: At one point you mentioned that PCBs in fish flesh were something 
like 1.4 ppm. At what point does that become a health hazard to recreational fishing or 
to a person eating that fish? 

L. Bridges: The federal standards for all fish products for PCBs up until 
August 1984 was 5 ppm. Since then, it has been reduced to 2 ppm. Up to this point, the 
state has not adopted the federal standard and considers 5 ppm a problem. However, the 
Massachusetts Department of Public Health has informed me that they will be holding 
public hearings within a month, to adopt the 2-ppm standard. 

We've examined other fish in Boston Harbor, but I merely pointed out the 
flounder because they were from the same fish in which neoplasia were discovered. Most 
of the fish flesh from flounder in Boston Harbor has been below the 2-ppm level. 

There has been no examination of lobster, and lobster concentrate PCBs as 
much as or possibly even more than winter flounder, based on our experience in New 
Bedford Harbor. We had lobster in New Bedford Harbor with up to 78 ppm in the flesh. 
We have no information on PCBs in Boston Harbor lobster. Gordon Wallace and Dr. 
Eganhouse will be doing studies of PCBs in Boston Harbor. We have recently collected 30 
animals to analyze because public hearings are coming up and because we want to know 
something about the PCB levels in lobster in Boston Harbor. I would point out, though, 
that from our experience in New Bedford, we find that if you separate the tamale in the 
lobster from the flesh, the tamale is usually higher by a factor of ten than the normal 
flesh. 


A. Rosenfeld: I was wondering if there was any information on what the 
impact of these neoplasias of fish populations might be in terms of population dynamics 
and population fluctuations or the presence of high levels of chemicals, for example, in 
the lobster. Has there been any evidence of a decline in the overall fishery in Boston 
Harbor for winter flounder as well as lobster? 


34 


L. Bridges: I should have given a little more background on the lobster fishery 
in Boston Harbor because in the past ten years the landings have shown a steady trend 
upward from about 2 million pounds up to 3 million pounds. Now, that doesn't mean that 
just because the landings have increased, that the population has increased. What it might 
mean is that the effort to harvest those animals has increased. Because of the value of 
the product, increasing numbers of traps are being set for lobsters all the time. The 
coastal waters of Massachusetts are just full of lobster traps because they're so valuable. 
So the effort just keeps increasing dramatically. 

To answer your other question about the impact of the fish health on the 
population itself, we have absolutely no information on this particular situation or on most 
situations on what disease might be doing in a wild situation. I would say that all of the 
flounder we looked at were over 25 cm, which indicates to me that while we didn't age 
them, they would probably all be around between 6 and 7 years old, at least. 

There was a study done on Torch Lake Michigan in the 1940's I believe, and 
perhaps more recently, where they had the same phenomenon of neoplasia in yellow perch. 
They found that by comparing the longevity of those animals to the longevity of yellow 
perch in other Michigan lakes that the carcinoma reduced the longevity on the average by 
about 2 years. That is the only study I am aware of where they had some mortality 
information to compare to. 

Question: Concerning this very significant recreational fishery for winter 
flounder in Boston Harbor, are any of those fish making their way into commercial 
markets? And if so, where? 

L. Bridges: I should point out that although the winter flounder migrate 
outside of the harbor in the summer, they remain out in the deeper water of about 40 to 
50 feet throughout the winter. They are harvested commercially. They do enter the 
commercial catch. 

Question: I'm talking about recreationally caught fish in the Harbor. 

L. Bridges: No commercial fishing for winter flounder is allowed within the 
Harbor because it might interfere with navigation. Some of those fish are entering the 
commercial fishery outside the Harbor, and, of course, there is always some illegal 
commercial fishing, principally at night inside the Harbor. But the incidence of illegal 
commercial fishing at night within Boston Harbor has declined over recent years because 
of better enforcement. 

Dr. Brown: I think that's all the time we have for questions. To follow up on 
Leigh's talk we are fortunate to have Bob Murchelano to come speak to us today on 
histopatholgy of the winter flounder from the Oxford Laboratories. 


35 


REFERENCES 


Anon. 1980 National Survey of Fishing Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation— 
Massachusetts. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S.B.C. 76 pp. 

Despres-Patanjo, L.J., Ziskowski, and R. Murchelano. 1982. Distribution of fish diseases 
monitored on stock assessment cruises in the western North Atlantic. Int. 
Counc. Explor. Sea. CM 1982/E:30 12 pp. 

Estrella, B.T. 1984. Gill and shell pathology in Massachusetts coastal lobster ( Homarus 
americanus) as indicators of degraded marine environment in Massachusetts 
Bay and Buzzards Bay. Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, Sandwich, 
Mass. Unpublished manuscript. 16 pp. 

Howe, A. 1984. Fishery resource assessment unpublished data and letter report. Mass. 
Div. of Mar. Fisheries, 21 pp. 

Malins, D.C., B.B. McCain, D.W. Brown, S.L. Chan, M.S. Myers, J.T. Landahl, P.G. 

Prohesha, A.J. 3riedman, L.D. Rhodes, D.G. Burrows, W.D. Gronlund and H.O. 
Hodgins. 1984. Chemical Pollutants in Sediments and diseases of bottom 
dwelling fish in Puget Sound, Washington. Env. Sci. Tech. 18:9:. pp. 704-713. 

Murchelano, R.A. and R.E. Wolke. 1983. Epizootic carcinoma in winter flounder, 
Pseudopleuronectes americanus . Science 228: 587-589. 

Nash, G.M. 1984. Lobster Fishery Statistics, Mass. Dept, of Fisheries, Wildlife, and 
Recreational Vehicles, Tech. Series No. 19, 20 pp. 


36 





STATUS OF THE HABITAT: CHEMICAL CONSIDERATIONS 


Metals and Nutrients 


by 

Dr. Gordon T. Wallace 
Environmental Sciences Program 
University of Massachusetts at Boston 
Harbor Campus 
Boston, MA 


Metal contamination of coastal marine environments has been linked to human 
health problems in areas where massive contamination has occurred (Kurland et al., 1960). 
However, the effects of chronic metal contamination on a lesser scale have been ill- 
defined, either from a human health or coastal ecosystem perspective. Human health 
concerns associated with the consumption of mercury-contaminated seafood have 
generally raised the level of public concern regarding ingestion of seafood potentially 
contaminated by toxic materials introduced into marine and fresh waters. However, 
sublethal threats to the ecosystem have received less attention, perhaps because of the 
uncertainty surrounding attempts to quantify such effects. We cannot, for example, 
definitively answer questions concerning the relative magnitudes of the effect of pollution 
and overfishing on valuable fisheries resources. Our ignorance of potential low-level 
effects of pollutants in coastal marine environments is coupled with increasing pressure to 
use these same coastal environments to receive large quantities of wastes. The Boston 
Harbor and adjacent Massachusetts Bay coastal environment is perhaps one of the most 
significant examples of this situation where ignorance coupled with inappropriate disposal 
practices has left us with a legacy of long-term contamination and uncertainty about the 
resultant effects on the ecosystem. 

One aspect of this contamination includes the introduction of metals, some of which 
are known to be toxic, to the Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay ecosystem. The 
predominant sources of metals to Boston Harbor are shown in Figure 1. Effluent from 
primary wastewater treatment enters the Harbor at the Deer Island, Nut Island, and Hull 
outfalls. Metals and other contaminants are also introduced into the Harbor from the 
combined sewer overflows prncipally located in the Inner Harbor and Dorchester Bay. 

Boston Harbor can be classified, using the definition of Fairbridge (1980), as a 
marine estuary. Freshwater input is minimal. The relative magnitude of sewage and 
riverine inputs into the Harbor : s given in Table 1. The rivers account for approximately 
one-third of the freshwater input. The bulk of the remaining freshwater input is primary 
effluent from the two sewage treatment plants with smaller amounts coming from the 
combined sewer overflows (CSOs). Dry weather inputs are the primary source of 
pollutants to the Harbor from CSOs rather than those from wet weather flows. 



Figure 1. Point Source Discharges to Boston Harbor. 


38 





TABLE 1 


ANNUAL INPUTS TO BOSTON HARBOR 


Source 

Inputs (m3) 

Percent 

Contribution 

Rivers 

3.3 x 10* 

35% 

Effluent 

5.8 x 10 s 

60% 

Combined Sewer Overflows 

0.2 x 10* 

2% 

Dry Weather Overflows 

0.3 x 10* 

3% 

Total 

9.6 x 108 

100% 


39 







Annual mass fluxes of selected metals entering the Harbor in Deer Island effluent 
are shown in Figure 2. While there is a hint of a trend downward in some of the later 
data, the 1982 and 1983 values are discouraging and indicate that the mass flux for some 
metals remains quite high and is likely to remain so until an effective pretreatment plan 
is instituted. 

Annual inputs of copper and lead to a number of estuaries and coastal waters have 
been compiled by Nixon et al. (1986). When the effluent inputs of these same two metals 
are calculated for Boston Harbor, their annual mass loadings are second only to that for 
the Hudson Raritan Bay system (Figure 3). The estimate for Boston Harbor excludes 
contributions from the CSOs or non-point sources. Also an unknown fraction of the input 
is most likely rapidly transported into Massachusetts Bay. However, until additional data 
become available, these estimates are probably of the right order of magnitude and valid 
for comparative purposes. 

Sediments are a known sink for contaminants in aquatic environments. Fine¬ 
grained, organic-rich sediments are most efficient in retaining pollutants. The 
distribution of sediment types in Boston Harbor, shown in Figure 4, includes large 
extensive regions of these fine-grained, organic rich muds, some having an organic 
content greater than 10 percent, and, therefore, representing potentially efficient traps 
of both inorganic and organic pollutants introduced into Harbor waters. 

Lead distribution in the sediments of Boston Harbor illustrates this fact (Figure 5). 
Sediment lead concentrations in the Inner Harbor and in the vicinity of Moon Island 
(Figure 5 ) are much higher than lead concentrations found in sediments sampled in 
Massachusetts Bay (Table 2). The particularly high sediment concentrations of lead in the 
vicinity of Moon Island are probably associated with the Moon Island discharge, which is 
used as an emergency by-pass upon system failure and results in the discharge of raw 
sewage to that area. However, because of the absence of data, transport and deposition 
of metal-laden particulate matter from other regions of the Harbor to the sediments in 
the vicinity of Moon Island cannot be ruled out. High sediment concentrations of lead 
similar to those found in the vicinity of Moon Island are also observed in sediments in the 
Inner Harbor. Again, the sources of lead in Inner Harbor sediments have not been 
accurately defined, but may reflect the large number of CSOs discharging into this part of 
the Harbor. 

The concentrations of a selected number of metals in Boston Harbor sediments are 
compared with those sampled in other contaminated areas such as the New York Bight, 
Massachusetts Bay, and Commencement Bay (a Superfund site) in Table 2. Metal 
concentrations in Massachusetts Bay sediments are comparable with those observed in 
sediments at the sludge dump site in the New York Bight (Carmody et al., 1973). Metal 
concentrations in Boston Harbor are comparable to, and in some cases substantially 
exceed, those in Commencement Bay and at some sites reach the mg/g (parts per 
thousand) dry weight range. Most of the highest metal concentrations have been observed 
in an area of the Harbor known as the Fort Point Channel, which receives approximately 
40 percent of the total CSO discharges to Boston's Inner Harbor (see Figure 1). 


40 


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41 


Figure 2. Deer Island Effluent Mass Discharges of Cu, Cd, Pb, Ni and Zn, kg/day, for 
the Years 1972 Through 1983. Discharge Rates are Arithmetic Mean of 
Monthly Concentrations in Effluent Times Effluent Flow. 





















































COPPER INPUT (mg m* 2 y-‘) 


io 4 


io 2 


IO ' 1 

IO* 1 I IO IO 2 IO 3 IO 4 

LEAD INPUT (mg m^y* 1 ) 


Figure 3. Comparison of Annual Mass Loading of Copper and Lead to Boston Harbor 
with that of Other Estuaries for which Data are Available. Modified from 
Nixon et al., 1986. 



Hudson Raritan Bay 

• 


BOSTON HARBOR ★ 

Narragansett Bay 

• 

South San Francisco • 

Bay 

• Chesapeake Bay 

Delaware 

Bay 

( 

Southern California 
Bight 

• 

_ South Atlantic 
Bight 

1 1 


42 



ORGANIC MATTER CONTENT 



Figure 4. 


Organic Matter Content of Boston Harbor Sediments. From Fitzgerald, 
1980. 


43 





70 55 

Lead Distribution 


X background 
value 


fiq/q 


0 0-50 

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Hi 150-200 
■H >200 


0-5 X 
5-IOX 
I0-I5X 
15-20 X 
>200 X 




BOSTON HARBOR 

0 2 4 


05 


00 


Figure 5. Lead Distribution in Boston Harbor Sediments. Data Contoured by Hand 
Using Data Compiled of Fitzgerald (1980) and White (1972). Background 
Sediment Concentrations are Based on Average Value of Four Massachusetts 
Sediment Samples. See White (1972) for Details. 


44 







































TABLE 2. METALS IN SURFICIAL SEDIMENTS (mg/kg dry weight). 









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Metal concentrations in the sediments of Massachusetts Bay, reported in a study 
undertaken by the New England Aquarium in 1976, are similar to recent data generated by 
NOAA although concentrations reported in the NOAA data tend to be somewhat lower (V. 
Zdanowicz, NOAA, Sandy Hook, NJ; pers. comm.). Of interest in the New England 
Aquarium's sediment data for chromium (Figure 6) is the apparent shoreward increase in 
concentration in the vicinity of Salem Sound. This distribution is consistent with what 
little we know about discharges in this area. The South Essex Sewage District discharges 
primary, or until recently, raw sewage effluent into Salem Harbor. Analyses of this 
effluent in the past have found rather remarkable concentrations of chromium (in the 
mg/1 range) in the effluent (South Essex Sewage District 301h Waiver Application). 

The existing data for metals in Massachusetts Bay sediments do not clearly indicate 
a spatial pattern that would implicate Boston Harbor as a source of the observed metals. 
This lack of a pattern is not surprising considering the variable nature of the sediments in 
Massachusetts Bay, especially the occurrence of coarse-grained sediments inshore 
(Fitzgerald, 1980). However, potential long-range transport of metals to Massachusetts 
Bay from Boston Harbor and their subsequent deposition at offshore locations is a distinct 
possibility in this environment. 

Copper concentrations (Figure 7) tend to increase towards Boston Harbor although 
there is a gap in the data in the area immediately adjacent to the Harbor, perhaps because 
of the difficulty in sampling coarse-grain sediments in that area. Indeed, knowledge of 
the fate of the contaminant-laden sludge discharged at the mouth of the Harbor over the 
past two decades is non-existent. The short- and long-term fate of this material is 
essentially unknown. Local deposition in the Harbor, if Fitzgerald's (1980) estimates are 
correct is, a minor sink for metals discharged from the treatment plants. 

Assessing the degree of contamination in a region simply on the basis of bulk 
sediment metal concentrations, however, is difficult because grain size and organic 
content of the sediments are important variables influencing sediment metal 
concentrations; and, these variables may or may not be associated with pollutant sources. 
Unfortunately, much of the sediment sampling and analyses performed on Boston Harbor 
and Massachusetts Bay samples have not included appropriate analyses of the different 
size fractions present. 

Sediment geochronology in conjunction with contaminant analysis has been shown to 
be useful in documenting the pollution history of regional sediments (Goldberg et al., 
1977). Data from a core taken in Dorchester Bay by Fitzgerald (1980) represents a similar 
effort to assess the pollution history of Boston Harbor sediments (Figure 8). Well-known 
problems are associated with the use of lead-210 in sediment geochronology, particularly 
associated with the biological mixing of surficial sediments. However, for the purposes of 
this discussion, we will accept Fitzgerald's assignment of 1900 as the age of sediment 
found at 39 cm in the Dorchester Bay core. 

Most of the metal concentrations increase dramatically with core height above the 
1900 horizon. The more recently deposited sediments in the core have much higher 


46 



Figure 6. Chromium Distribution in Massachusetts Bay Sediments. Units in pg/g Dry 
Weight. From Gilbert et al., 1976. 


47 












Figure 7. Copper Distributions in Massachusetts Bay Sediments. Units in pg/g Dry 
Weight. From Gilbert et al., 1976. 


48 







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49 


Figure 8. Vertical Profile of Trace Metals and Pb-210 in a Core Taken in Dorchester 
Bay, Boston Harbor. From Fitzgerald (1980). 


























concentrations of metals than those below the 1900 horizon. Similar observations have 
been made in cores taken in other areas of the world. To my knowledge, there are no 
similar data for Massachusetts Bay sediments. Such data would be of value in assessing 
the relative increase in metal concentrations of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay 
sediment^ as well as the potential influence of the Boston Harbor discharges on 
Massachusetts Bay sediment quality. 

While sediments of estuarine and coastal marine environments are a known sink for 
contaminants, the efficiency with which these sediments trap metals and other 
contaminants is not well understood (Turekian, 1977; Nixon et al., 1984). The efficiency 
with which the sediments of Boston Harbor retain metals introduced into the Harbor was 
erroneously stated in the original version of Fitzgerald's thesis to be about 33 percent for 
metals emanating from the effluent of the two treatment plants. In fact, when later 
corrected for an order of magnitude error used in his calculation, Fitzgerald's estimate of 
this trapping efficiency becomes only 3 percent. The implication that metals in the 
Harbor sediments represent only a very small portion of the total loading to the Harbor 
suggests that most of the metals introduced into the Harbor are transported offshore into 
Massachusetts Bay and either dispersed or accumulated in the fine-grained deposits that 
were referred to by Dr. Boehm. At this point it is probably most accurate to say that the 
mass balance of metals has not been established and that the fate of metals introduced 
into the Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay system is not well understood. 

While sediment concentrations serve to qualitatively integrate the history of metal 
pollution in coastal environments, water column concentrations reflect the shorter time 
frame of pollution. However, it is difficult to accurately measure water column 
concentrations of metals in the nanomolar and picomolar range. Because of the frequent 
poor quality of such data, meaningful interpretation of the distribution of metals and, 
consequently, the identification of processes critical to understanding their fate and 
transport in nearshore environments have remained obscure. 

Previously reported water column concentrations of metals in Boston Harbor have 
been shown to be erroneously high, in some cases by as much as three orders of magnitude 
(Wallace et al., in press). Data in Figure 9 compare the recently obtained range in 
concentrations of selected metals in the Harbor by Wallace et al. with those reported by 
the Massachusetts Division of Water Pollution Control (DWPC). Concentrations observed 
by the DWPC for these metals in Deer Island sewage treatment plant effluent are also 
given for comparison. Metal concentrations in the Harbor as determined by the DWPC 
are frequently in the same range as concentrations they reported to be present in the 
sewage effluent. Because Harbor waters have a salinity in the range of 30 o/oo and, 
therefore, contain only a small fraction of sewage effluent, the metal concentrations 
reported by the DWPC for the Harbor are probably incorrect. 

The data of Wallace et al. (in press) were acquired using techniques suitable for use 
in open-ocean waters that have analytical resolutions orders of magnitude lower than 
those used by most non-academic institutions. Although concentrations for all the metals 
analyzed (copper, zinc, nickel, cadmium, and lead) ranged from 10 to 1,000 times lower 


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than reported previously, their concentrations are rather high when compared with recent 
reliable data for these metals in open-ocean waters. For example, typical open-ocean 
surface concentrations of copper are 1 to 2 nmol/1 per liter. Typical clean coastal water, 
on the other hand, contains 2 to 3 nmol/1 per liter of copper. 

The distribution of copper in Boston Harbor reported by Wallace et al. (in press) is of 
particular interest. The distribution of copper at low tide, shown in Figure 10, provides 
three important pieces of information. First, at all stations sampled, the concentration of 
copper exceeded the current EPA standards for marine waters of 2 pg/1 (31.5 nmols/1). 
Second, concentrations in the southern parts of the Harbor were in excess of 200 nmol/1, 
among the highest reported in the reliable literature for estuarine and coastal waters. 
Finally a sample taken directly from the Deer Island plume contained, as expected, a 
higher copper concentration than observed at adjacent stations. 

High concentrations of copper were also Qbserved in the Inner Harbor and may 
reflect a combination of local sources and/or longer residence times of water in the Inner 
Harbor. Unfortunately, our ignorance of the dynamics of metals in Boston Harbor is 
coupled with our ignorance of the physical oceanography of Boston Harbor. Except for 
some initial studies in the vicinity of the Deer Island and Nut Island discharges, virtually 
nothing is known about the physical circulation in the Harbor. 

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the copper distribution in the Harbor was 
the high concentrations observed in the southernmost areas of the Harbor. These high 
concentrations may reflect a combination of geomorphological, chemical, and biological 
parameters. For instance, the shallow nature of the southern Harbor, coupled with 
biogeochemical remobilization of copper from particles accumulating in the underlying 
sediment may account for this observation. We should also note that the remobilization 
of copper from sediments may involve temporal scales of days and perhaps even hours. 
Recent data on the kinetics of nutrient fluxes from sediments (Garber, 1984) support this 
hypothesis. The possibility that such rapid remobilization might happen is not generally 
considered when assessing impacts of waste disposal in the nearshore zone. 

Finally, with the high ambient concentration of copper in the Harbor, it becomes 
obvious that any discharge of copper to Boston Harbor waters from any source would 
probably violate EPA Water Quality Criteria. The discharge from Boston's new secondary 
plant, when constructed, may therefore have to be located further offshore to meet these 
standards. Unfortunately, the chemical speciation, toxicity, and transport and fate of 
copper and other metals in the Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay area are not understood. 
Until such knowledge is obtained, decisions regarding matters such as the extension of the 
outfall, a decision involving hundreds of millions of dollars, must be made in ignorance. 

Knowledge of the sources, distribution, and processes influencing the fate of metals 
in Massachusetts Bay is also non-existent. Evidence that metal concentrations in 
Massachusetts Bay sediments are higher than those observed in clean areas has already 
been presented. However, because of our limited knowledge in the above mentioned 
areas, we cannot make reasonable judgements concerning the potential influence of 


52 



Figure 10. Contour Plot of Copper Concentrations Observed at Low Tide on August 17 
and 18, 1983. Contours Arbitrarily Drawn by Hand. Sampling Locations 
Indicated by Black Dots. Data from Wallace et al. (In Press). 


53 







































enhanced toxic loadings, as would occur, for example, from the possible extension of the 
Boston Harbor outfall, on the Massachusetts Bay environment. 

Elevated concentrations of toxic contaminants in aquatic environments sometimes 
manifest themselves in elevated tissue concentrations in organisms, some of which we 
eat. For that reason, it is of interest from a public health perspective to determine the 
extent to which such edible tissues are contaminated. Data for lobsters, winter flounder, 
and clams taken from Boston Harbor are now beginning to be collected. Initial findings, 
with respect to metals, report that no recognizable human health problem is apparent. 

Human health should not be the only concern, however, when assessing the effects 
of contaminants in our nearshore coastal waters. For example, the concentration of 
copper in Boston Harbor reaches levels previously shown to exert noticeable effects on 
the biota in nearshore waters. These effects include inhibited bacterial and phytoplankton 
growth, change in succession of phytoplankton species, and reduced zooplankton fecundity 
(Hodson et al., 1979). Also, physiological mechanisms used by organisms to mediate 
effects of metal pollution have some metabolic cost. An example is synthesis of 
metallothionein, a metal-binding low-molecular-weight protein used by a variety of 
organisms to prevent metals from reaching critical cellular components such as enzymes. 
The synthesis of this protein requires energy that might otherwise be used for growth or 
other activities of the organism. Such effects are difficult to assess and even more 
difficult to understand in their influence on ecosystem dynamics as a whole. 

Frequently, the egg and juvenile stages of developing organisms in the near-shore 
coastal environment are the most susceptible to impact by metals. This fact may be of 
particular significance in Boston Harbor because of its importance as a spawning ground 
for winter flounder and the importance of the winter flounder fishery itself in the Harbor 
(Jerome et al., 1966). 

Eutrophication has been and continues to be a major concern in the disposal of 
sewage in coastal waters. Nutrient distributions and dynamics in Boston Harbor and 
Massachusetts Bay are essentially unknown. The existing data were generally obtained in 
the summer and are restricted to observations of either short temporal variations at 
specific sites (Fitzgerald, 1980) or semi-synoptic sampling. Seasonal variations, uptake by 
primary producers, and regeneration and storage in Harbor sediments have not been 
examined. Because the flux of nutrients to the Harbor will not decrease but may, in fact, 
be increased by applying secondary treatment, information on nutrient dynamics in the 
Boston Harbor/Massachusetts 3ay system is needed. Nutrient dynamics not only affect 
the biota, but are also critical in influencing pollutant transport and retention in both the 
sediments and water column. 

Officer and Ryther (1977) have presented data suggesting that secondary treatment 
of wastes followed by disposal in coastal waters with restricted circulation is less 
desirable than offshore disposal of untreated wastes, at least with respect to the impact 
on oxygen concentrations in the respective receiving waters. Data gathered in the 
preparation of Boston's 301(h) Waiver Application indicate occasional depressed oxygen 


54 


concentrations in Massachusetts Bay, the cause of which has not been determined. The 
occurrence of these low oxygen concentrations in Massachusetts Bay contributed to the 
decision of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to deny the 301(h) application. As 
Officer and Ryther point out, the nitrogen flux available for plant growth from secondary 
treated effluent may exceed that from untreated sewage. Thus, potential enhanced 
nutrient fluxes from Boston's future secondary sewage treatment plant raise important 
questions concerning the fate of nutrients and their effect on oxygen concentrations in 
the Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay system. Ironically, the application of secondary 
treatment, while serving to reduce the flux of contaminants to this system, may well 
result in accelerated eutrophication of the Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay system. 
Clearly, we need to understand the nutrient dynamics of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts 
Bay. 


In summary, I would like to identify critical areas where the lack of data either 
directly or indirectly influence our understanding of the inorganic chemistry of Boston 
Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. 

1. The physical circulation and the parameters that govern such 
circulation have not been adequately defined for either the Harbor 
or the Bay. These data are required to determine transport, 
distribution, and fate of contaminants in this system and, 
ultimately, the potential influence of these contaminants on the 
biota. 

2. The efficiencies with which contaminants are retained in both 
Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay sediments are critical in any 
attempt to assess the existing and future fate of contaminants 
introduced into this system. 

3. Accurate assessment of the nature and quantities of metals and 
nutrients entering the system must be obtained. 

4. Knowledge of the chemical speciation of metals is of critical 
importance in any attempt to understand the geochemical behavior 
and toxicity of these contaminants to the biota. 

The above areas are not exhaustive, but rather serve as areas where immediate 
information is required, especially in view of the massive funds (about two billion dollars) 
being expended on the design and construction of facilities to reduce the pollution of 
Boston Harbor. Even with such improvements, the quantities of metals and nutrients 
entering this system will still be substantial. Ignorance in the above areas will enhance 
the possibility of costly engineering mistakes in the next decade that may adversely 
effect the health and welfare of this ecosystem for many decades to come. 


55 


Question and Answer Discussion 

Question: Has there been any monitoring for metals in shellfish? 

Dr. Wallace: Not in any systematic way. I know of one study where metals were 
analyzed in clams taken from the Harbor. In addition, we are currently analyzing a 
limited number of clams from Boston Harbor. Incidently, one of the critical parameters 
in any of this work, and I’m sure Paul will support me in this, is proper validation of the 
methods we use. Historically, the methodology has not been properly validated. For 
example, there frequently is no reference standard analyzed. Unfortunately, we cannot 
accept concentrations in tissues with any degree of confidence unless we have that 
information. If we accept current analyses as valid, no public health problem appears to 
be associated with metal concentrations in the edible tissues of clams from the Harbor. 

Question: Do you have any insight into the amount of reduction that has resulted in 
the metals loading to sewage treatment plants? 

Dr. Wallace: Yes. For example, the reduction in copper and other metals has been 
shown in a number of reports. The best example I know where ocean disposal is involved 
is the effect of pretreatment on the municipal discharges along the southern California 
coast. Pretreatment resulted in about a 40 percent decrease in influent copper 
concentrations. Secondary treatment, in the absence of pretreatment, can increase 
removal from 25 percent for primary to 70 percent removal for secondary, or in other 
words by a factor of 2 to 3 with respect to primary. 

Question. Without pretreatment? 

Dr. Wallace: Without pretreatment. Exactly. So to accomplish dramatic decreases 
in effluent metal concentrations there has to be a rather effective pretreatment program. 

Question: Is there any data indicating a mass balance distribution between industry 
and other sources of metals? 

Dr. Wallace: Not to my knowledge. That's a difficult problem. I would defer to 
Cheryl Breen or the EPA for the answer to that question. Have you been able to identify 
individual industrial sources of the various metals in the system? 

C. Breen: No industrial sources. 

Question: I mean, that's the obvious question. 

Dr. Wallace: Exactly. I agree. 

Dr. Thomas: Do you have any gut feeling concerning, say, boat ship traffic and anti¬ 
fouling paint as sources, minor source, heavy? 


56 


Dr. Wallace: In my opinion, the point discharges are probably the most important. 
However, we don’t know anything about non-point discharges to Boston Harbor. But I 
suspect, by analogy to Narragansett Bay and other areas, that non-point sources are a 
significant, but not primary source. 


57 


REFERENCES 


C.E. Maguire, Inc. 1984. Boston Harbor Water Quality Baseline for the SDEIS on Boston 
Harbor Wastewater Facilities Siting. 52pp. 

Carmody, D.J., J.B. Pearce and W.E. Yasso. 1973. Trace metals in sediments of New 
York Bight. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 4:132-135. 

Fairbridge, R.W. 1980. The estuary: its definition and geodynamic cycle. In: Olausson E. 
and I. Cato, eds., Chemistry and Biogeochemistry of Estuaries, John Wiley and Sons, 
N.Y., N.Y., p.1-35. 

Fitzgerald, M.G. 1980. Anthropogenic influence on the sedimentary regime of an urban 
estuary-Boston Harbor. Ph.D. Thesis. Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods 
Hole Oceanographic Institution WHOI-80-38. 

Garber, J.H. 1984. N-15 tracer study of the short-term fate of particulate organic 
nitrogen at the surface of coastal marine sediments. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 16:89- 
104. 

Gilbert, T.R., A.M. Clay and C.A. Karp. 1976. Distribution of polluted materials in 
Massachusetts Bay. Technical Report, New England Aquarium. 173pp. 

Goldberg, E.D., E. Gamble, J.J. Griffin, and M. Koide. 1977. Pollution history of 
Narragansett Bay as recorded in its sediments. Estuarine and Coastal Marine 
Science 5:549-561. 

Hodson, P.V., U. Borgmann, and H. Shear. 1979. Toxicity of copper to aquatic biota. In: 
Nriagu, J.O. (ed.), Copper in the Environment. Part II: Health Effects. Wiley- 
Interscience, N.Y., N.Y. p.307-372. 

Jerome, Jr., W.C., A.P. Chesmore, and C.O. Anderson Jr. 1966. A Study of the marine 
resources of Quincy Bay. Monograph Series Number 2, Division of Marine Fisheries, 
Department of Natural Resources, Boston, MA. 62pp. 

Kurland, L.T., S.N. Faro and H.S. Siedler. 1960. 'Minimata' disease. World Neurol. 1:320- 
325. 

Massachusetts Department of Environmental Quality Engineering, Division of Water 
Pollution Control. 1984. Boston Harbor 1984 Water Quality and Wastewater 
Discharge Data. 46pp. 

Nixon, S.W., C.D. Hunt, and B.L. Nowicki. 1986. The retention of nutrients (C, N, P), 
heavy metals (Mn, Cd, Pb, Cu), and petroleum hydrocarbons in Narragansett Bay. 
In: Lassens, P. and J.M. Martin (eds.), Biogeochemical Processes at the Sand-Sea 
Boundary, Roscoff, France. Elsevier Press, N.Y., N.Y. 


58 


Officer, C.B. and J.H. Ryther. 1977. Secondary sewage treatment versus ocean outfalls: 
an assessment. Science 197:1056-1060. 

Turekian, K.K. 1977. The fate of metals in the oceans. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 
41:1139-1144. 

Wallace, G.T. 3r., 3.H. Waugh and K.A. Garner. 1986. Metal distribution in a major urban 
estuary (Boston Harbor) impacted by ocean disposal. Proceedings of the Fifth 
International Ocean Disposal Symposium, Oregon State University, Corvallis, 
Oregon, September 10-14, 1984. in press. 

White, R.J. 1972. The Distribution and concentration of selected metals in Boston Harbor 
sediments. M.S. Thesis, Northeastern University, Boston, MA. 103pp. 


59 






















































































































































STATUS OF THE HABITAT: CHEMICAL CONSIDERATIONS 
Organic Chemistry 
by 

Dr. Paul Boehm 

Battelle New England Marine Research Laboratory 
Duxbury, MA 


I would like to thank the previous speakers who have really set the stage for a 
general overview of the chemical status of the Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay habitat. 
I will be presenting our findings on toxic organic chemical compounds in the region and 
Gordon Wallace will be talking next, primarily about the metals results. 

In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that the concentrations of toxic 
compounds in coastal marine systems not only represent indicators of the health of a 
system, but also affect the use and value of marine resources. These toxic compounds 
affect the value of marine resources directly through increases in body burdens, increases 
which may result in body burden levels approaching maximum levels set by the U.S. Food 
and Drug Administration (FDA) for harvesting marine resources. Toxic compounds also 
affect marine resources indirectly through their presence in the habitat (e.g., in the 
sediments) which in turn affect the ecosystem, and individual animal's health. The 
polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination in New Bedford Harbor, Massachusetts, a 
marine Superfund site, and the effects of the contamination on the resources in Buzzards 
Bay is a well-known case study for a direct effect where the lobster resources have been 
closed due to high levels in tissue. The case of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) 
contamination in Puget Sound embayments and its probable impact on the health of 
marine animals exemplifies an indirect effect. Similar linkages between toxic compound 
abundances and environmental health are strongly suggested by recent chemical and 
histopathological studies in Boston Harbor. This afternoon, Dr. Murchelano will expand 
much more on this latter topic. 

This morning I would like to summarize the results of recent studies on toxic organic 
compounds in the sediments of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. Sediments are mid- 
to long-term integrators of pollutant inputs, and, therefore, may be used as indicators of 
general environmental health. I am going to place these findings in perspective vis-a-vis 
other areas and relate these findings to possible impacts on the overall health of the 
system. After I summarize what is known, I would like to equally highlight how little we 
really do know about the system on which to base sound management decisions. 

PCBs and PAHs are two classes of toxic organic compounds which have received a 
great deal of attention. They are by no means the whole toxic contaminant "story" in any 
system, but I will be focusing primarily on those compounds as leading indicators of toxic 
contaminant problems. 


61 


I am going to begin by stating the overall conclusions of the study, so that when I do 
present some of the information, you will be able to see how I arrived at these 
conclusions. A major conclusion of recent studies is that PCB levels in Boston Harbor are 
fairly typical for moderately polluted estuaries, such as New York Harbor and Buzzards 
Bay. PCB levels in Massachusetts Bay are elevated over a wide area, similar in overall 
distribution to the New York Bight Apex, which has been well studied. The PCB 
distributions are more widespread in Massachusetts Bay than they are in New York Bight 
Apex. The depositional basins in Massachusetts Bay are potential traps for PCBs, PAHs 
and other sewage-associated and harbor-associated material that may be transported from 
the coastal area to adjacent receiving waters. The PAH levels in Boston Harbor range 
from values fairly typical for polluted estuaries to some of the highest values reported 
anywhere. This fact is one of the major findings that I have discovered so far in Boston 
Harbor. In the Harbor, we find pockets of very high PAH levels that coincide with high 
coprostanol values. Coprostanol is a fecal steroid, an indicator of (mammalian) sewage 
input, and is often analyzed in sediments along^with toxic organic compounds as a tracer. 
The PAH loading in Massachusetts is similar to that of the New York Bight Apex. 
Offshore Massachusetts Bay and the New York Bight Apex are fairly similar in overall 
loadings of PAHs as determined from sediment concentration distributions. 

Other researchers have determined that the overall health of the region appears to 
be mixed, with degraded bottom habitats observed in the Harbor and sporadically 
offshore. The health of finfish is relatively poor and directly related to pollutant 
concentrations in the animals' habitats, the sediments from which they ultimately derive 
food. 


The residence time of contaminants in Boston Harbor is a key management 
parameter and is really not very well known. From data on other metropolitan harbors, 
such as New York Harbor, I estimate that the contaminant residence time in sediments is 
probably on the order of a decade or more. This raises the question: if we changed 
pollutant inputs, what type of recovery or response time will we observe for chemical 
loadings? It is probably on the order of a decade or more, rather than months or years. 

One of the mistakes we can make in considering toxic contaminant problems of 
Boston Harbor is to consider that sewage sludge inputs and sewage treatment plant inputs 
are the only potential source of toxic contamination in the area. This point does not 
minimize the importance of the sewage issue, but rather indicates that sources other than 
sewage outfalls are very important. All along the Boston Harbor shoreline and in the 
Charles River, there are also combined sewage overflows and other discharges. The 
impacts of riverine inputs, and the Charles River in particular, are not trivial. The 
Charles River is a major source of coliform bacteria and its sediments contain high levels 
of PAHs. 

Despite many studies in the Harbor, I think that our inability to understand the 
system has really been caused by a set of fairly myopic study plans. We have studied 
301(h) (secondary treatment water) problems and sewage outfall problems on a pipe-by- 


62 


pipe basis, but there has not been any overall management or environmental assessment 
on the area. 

As previously stated, the major point sources include sewage treatment plants and 
sewage sludge discharges. These discharges contain high levels of PCBs, up to about 30 
parts per million (ppm) on a dry-weight basis, which is a very high level. 

Other toxic organic concentrations in sewage discharges have been studied and are 
available in a variety of unpublished reports. Generally, the amount of toxics in these 
discharges exceed water quality criteria even after initial dilution, but there are sources 
of PCBs in the area other than sewage. Some data on sediments indicate that high levels 
of PCBs are found in the Inner Harbor areas approaching the Charles River, a finding 
which may or may not be directly related to the sewage inputs. Combined sewage 
overflows and other industrial inputs probably are very important in defining organic 
pollutant distributions in the harbor. 

In recent studies, scientists at Battelle have sampled several stations in the Outer 
Harbor and Massachusetts Bay, focusing on sewage treatment plants inputs and the 
general distributions of PCBs and PAHs in the area (Figures 1 and 2). 

The Harbor contains the highest levels of PCBs (0.06 to 0.33 ppm), levels that are 
not exceptional according to all the information from other areas we have evaluated so 
far. What is really exceptional in the Harbor are the various pockets of very high levels 
of PAHs. A hot spot was discovered at Station BH-2, an area called Deer Island Flats and 
a site of potential deposition of sewage sludge discharged to the east. This area is a mud 
flat with high organic content (Figure 1). Station BH-2's sediments contain extremely 
high levels of PAHs (880 ppm), very much higher than areas such as New York Harbor and 
other highly polluted estuaries. PAH concentrations are highly variable in the Harbor. 
Our study is based on only seven stations with PAH concentrations ranging from 2.7 to 880 
ppm and a mean of 180 ppm (Table 1). Other PAH hotspots might exist in the Harbor. 
The ratio of these toxic organics to coprostanol, the sewage indicator, indicates that 
sewage or sewage overflows are prevalent inputs of chemicals to the sediments in the 
area. 


Looking at Massachusetts Bay, we see the topography is a basin-bank-type of 
system. Stellwagen Bank approaches a depth of 20 meters from the sea surface. The 
Bank is an area with a great deal of whale activity. There are other basin areas in the 
region such as Stellwagen Basin, westward of Stellwagen Bank. Other basins in the region 
represent potential "traps" for coastal sediments and for pollutants that are discharged 
from along the coast and from Boston Harbor. The relatively high percent of silt in the 
Bay characterizes the basin areas and suggests that these are potential deposition areas of 
pollutants. There are cobble or gravel areas closer to shore, but with increasing distance 
offshore, there are potential traps for pollutants that are discharged from along the coast 
and from Boston Harbor. 


63 



Figure 1. Locations of Boston Harbor (BH) Sampling Stations. 


64 




































65 














TABLE 1. SUMMARY OF ORGANIC POLLUTANT DATA IN SEDIMENTS 





Region 



1 

2 

3 

4 






PAH (|ig/g) 

Mean 

180 

1.6 

1.0 

1.0 

Range 

(2.4-880) 

(0.3-3.5) 

(0.2-1.9) 

(0.6-1.4) 

PCB (pg/g) 

Mean 

0.14 

0.031 

0.010 

0.021 

Range 

(0.07-.33) 

(0.003-0.083) 

(0.002-0.023) 

(0.003-0.031) 

Coprostanol (pg/g) 

Mean 

3.6 

0.20 

0.12 

0.08 

Range 

(1.2-13.9) 

(0.03-0.4 3) 

(0.03-0.19) 

(0.07-0.10) 


66 











Now, this is indeed what we found in our recent and previous studies. PCBs and 
presumably other chemicals are found in higher concentrations in the depositional basins. 
A multi-station design (Figure 2) in Boston Harbor and several different regions in 
Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod Bay was used to examine distributions of toxic organic 
compounds. Companion studies were conducted to determine concentrations and benthic 
biological parameters. The biological studies were conducted by Dr. Peter Larsen at 
Bigelow Laboratory. 

As Table 1 shows, we found that of course, the concentrations of PAHs, PCBs, and 
coprostanol, the sewage indicator, are very high in the Harbor. There is a large range in 
the Harbor as I mentioned previously. Region 2 (Figure 2) is the northern area of 
Massachusetts Bay. Concentrations of toxics in this region are elevated over other 
offshore areas. Ranges of PAH concentrations at several stations in Region 2 reveal 
values which approach some found in Boston Harbor. These stations are located in small 
depositional basins (Stations MB6, 7, and 8). 

As we look at sediment results farther offshore and to the south in the region of 
Stellwagen Basin, we find higher values of PCBs and PAHs in these depositional areas. In 
general, we find the elevated PCBs are found in northern Massachusetts Bay. The data 
suggest that sewage inputs either from the Harbor or from some of the northern 
communities, such as South Essex, Lynn, may be deposited in these regions. 

Two depositional areas, Stations MB-6 and MB-8, exhibit some of the higher values 
in the offshore region. Values are low compared to those in the Harbor, but are high for 
similar offshore regions elsewhere. One of the problems we have in evaluating these data 
is that we do not have a firm handle on the trends of contaminants in the region because 
not many surveys have been done which occupy the same stations over time. A survey 
was conducted by New England Aquarium in 1976. However, our study represented the 
first statistically rigorous sampling where replicate samples and analyses were obtained at 
each station. We really do not have any statistically valid trend analyses to show whether 
concentrations are increasing or decreasing at these stations over time. 

We are seeing relatively higher concentrations at several stations, which are perhaps 
related to the proximity of the "foul" area, (near Station MB-6) a dumpsite for dredged 
material. Potential offshore transport of pollutants from the Harbor may be occurring as 
well. We strongly suspect that catch basins exist offshore that are acquiring and 
accumulating elevated levels of organic contaminants. 

We use many source indicators to interpret geochemical data, one of which is 
related to the composition of PCBs. We find that in the Harbor, trichlorobiphenyls (PCBs 
with three chlorine atoms) are prevalent and are related to sewage inputs. Such PCB 
compositional plots are useful in examining likely sources of PCBs (such as those which 
may be sewage-related). Station MB-6 is located far offshore. However, PCB 
compositional plots indicate that sewage input is evident. We have come to the 
conclusion, based on PCB compositional plots and on levels of coprostanol in the 


67 


sediments, that there are sewage-related deposits quite far offshore, tens of kilometers 
from the possible sources. 

I would now like to put these values into perspective. I showed you that the 
concentrations of PCBs in the Harbor are, at the high end, close to 0.5 part per million, or 
maybe more. Some known problem areas in the nation (for example New Bedford Harbor) 
have very, very high values. Outside of the New Bedford Harbor situation, we see that 
levels in Boston Harbor are similar to what we find in Buzzards Bay, in New York Harbor 
and in Commencement Bay. Thus, the Harbor contains fairly typical PCB levels of 
polluted estuaries. ^ 

We have attempted to compare the Massachusetts Bay findings with some other 
well-studied areas. One such area is the New York Bight Apex. If we calculate an 
offshore budget for the PCBS (say the amount of PCBs in sediments) and determine PCB 
distribution on a per-kilometer basis, we find that in comparing the New York Bight to 
Massachusetts Bay, the loading of PCBs per square kilometer are similar: about 0.9 
kg/km^ on the average for Massachusetts Bay and about 1.2 for the New York Bight. 

Although actual individual dump sites in the New York Bight are more heavily 
contaminated than dump sites in Massachusetts Bay (for instance, "the foul area"), as far 
as overall pollutant loadings is concerned, the total amount of PCBs in Massachusetts Bay 
is considerly higher than in New York Bight Apex (Table 2). 

Making a similar comparison for PAH compounds in each system (Table 3), we find 
that the amount of PAHs in the New York Bight Apex and offshore Massachusetts Bay are 
very similar on a square-kilometer basis (50-60 kg PAH/knr>2 on the average). 

In Boston Harbor, the PAH values are much higher than they are for other well 
known polluted estuaries, indicating that a severe PAH problem exists in the Boston 
Harbor area. On a square kilometer basis, the PAH loadings are 2 to 10 times higher than 
similar loadings in other harbor areas. 

There is also a considerable database on selected animals in the Harbor and Bay 
areas. Table 4 presents the levels of PCBs in a limited number of samples from our study. 
Looking at these data from the perspective of the ability to harvest (FDA levels) and not 
from the perspective of environmental health (similar to those aspects that Bob 
Murchelano will address later), only the winter flounder in Boston Harbor approach FDA 
limits of about 2 ppm. These limits, however, are still an order of magnitude lower in 
concentration than FDA limits. 

Elevated levels of PCBs are found, as well, in lobsters and crabs. Whether these 
observed levels are increasing or decreasing, we do not know. One of the missing pieces 
of the Boston Harbor environmental puzzle is a valid trend analysis on contaminant body 
burdens in the area. What we have presented today is, more or less, a snapshot of the 
status of toxic organic levels in the Harbor at present. 


68 


TABLE 2. COMPARATIVE PCB BUDGETS - MASSACHUSETTS BAY VS. NEW YORK 
BIGHT APEX. 



ng/g 

dry weight 

ng/cm3 ng/cm 23 

g/km 2 

Areas 

(km 2 ) 

kg PCB 

New York Bight Apex* 3 







Dredged Material Dumpsite 

200 

400 

800 

8000 

6 

48 

Sewage Sludge Dumpsite 

200 

400 

800 

8000 

16 

128 

Christianensen Basin 

200 

400 

800 

8000 

130 

1040 

Outer Bight Apex 

1.0 

2.0 

4.0 

40 

830 

34 




Total PCB (kg) = 


1250 

Massachusetts Bay c 



kgPCB/km 2 = 


1.24 

Region 2 

31 

62 

124 

1240 

2310 

2864 

Region 3 

10 

20 

40 

400 

1810 

724 




Total PCB (kg) = 


3588 




kgPCB/km 2 = 


.87 


a - 2 cm thick 

b - Data Sources = Boehm, 1982; Boehm et al., 1984; MacLeod et al., 1981; O'Connor et 
al., 1982; Part 2 of this study 

c - Define Source 


69 











TABLE 3 


COMPARATIVE PAH BUDGETS - MASSACHUSETTS BAY VS. NEW YORK 
BIGHT APEX. 



ng/g 

dry weight 

ng/cm3 

ng/cm2 a 

g/km 2 

Areas 
(km 2) 

kg PAH 

New York Bight Apex^ 



- 




Dredged Material Dumpsite 

5000 

10000 

20000 

200000 

6 

1200 

Sewage Sludge Dumpsite 

3000 

6000 

12000 

120000 

16 

1920 

Christianensen Basin 

10000 

20000 

40000 

400000 

130 

52000 

Outer Bight 

100 

200 

400 

4000 

850 

3400 




Total PAH (kg) = 


58520 

Massachusetts Bay c 



kg PAH/km 2 = 


58.5 

Region 2 

1600 

3200 

6400 

6400 

2310 

148000 

Region 3 

960 

1920 

3840 

38400 

1810 

69500 




Total PAH (kg) = 


217500 




kg PAH/km 2 = 


52.8 


a - 2 cm thick 

b - Data Sources = Boehm, 1982; Boehm et al., 1984; MacLeod et al., 1981; O'Connor et 
al., 1982; Part 2 of this study 

c - Define Source 


70 











TABLE 4. SUMMARY OF PCB CONCENTRATIONS IN EDIBLE TISUES 
(ppm, wet weight). 



Boston Harbor Area 

Massachusetts Bay 

Winter Flounder 

o 

o 

- 

Dab 

- 

0.01-0.02 

Lobster 

0.05-0.1 

- 

Cancer Crab 

0.2-0.3 

0.05-0.1 


71 








In Massachusetts Bay, we find that PCB levels in the dab, a flat fish (winter flounder 
were not sampled offshore) are much lower than they are in Boston Harbor. This finding 
is not surprising. PCB values in crabs in Massachusetts Bay are fairly close to Boston 
Harbor, illustrating that PCBs are probably transported offshore. To what extent this 
transport is occurring, we do not know, but it is impacting the levels of PCBs in crabs. 

In summary, I have quickly presented our knowledge of the types of organic 
concentrations offshore. As I mentioned before, one of the existing data gaps pertains to 
our knowledge of the other components of potential pollutant inputs into the system. We 
know a reasonable, yet incomplete amount about sewage inputs. Although a considerable 
number of analyses have been performed, we do not know, on a mass balance basis, what 
pollutants are coming out of the rivers and are coming out of the many combined sewage 
overflows. 

Therefore, we cannot really address, from a toxic organics viewpoint, the overall 
management questions, "What will happen if we turn off a certain pollutant source? What 
will happen to concentrations over time during a recovery of the system?" The residence 
times of contaminants in sediments and in the water column, which can only be computed 
from a knowledge of inputs and ambient concentrations, are very poorly known in relation 
to well studied systems where the sources have been studied with greater detail. We need 
to know just where the various pollutants are coming from and what will happen if we turn 
one or more of these sources off or place it elsewhere? 

We know very little about water column particulate organic pollutant concentrations 
as they relate to established EPA water quality criteria. Little is known regarding fluxes 
from the Harbor to Massachusetts Bay. Even in our surveys on Massachusetts Bay and 
Boston Harbor, we are looking at temporal snapshots, so we have to infer from where the 
materials are coming. Looking at the coupling between the Harbor and the Bay, we know 
very little about the extent of offshore transport of pollutants originating in Boston 
Harbor. 

Furthermore, we know very little about the fate of sewage plumes and associated 
pollutants. Sewage is discharged on the ebb tide, and we assume that it goes eastward 
into Massachusetts Bay. But we do not know where or how much of it may "slosh" back 
over a tidal cycle and be deposited into Boston Harbor. 

We do not know very much at all about temporal trends in pollutant concentrations. 
Monitoring data are almost totally lacking to determine if pollutant concentrations are on 
the increase over the last ten years. We are just beginning to get that information, and 
we certainly cannot make any assessment of how our various management decisions (such 
as, upgrading sewage treatment to secondary treatment) will affect the system until we 
have that type of information. We also have very little information on other 
contaminants (such as pesticides) of concern other than PCBs, PAHs, and heavy metals. 
More than 100 other compounds are on EPA's priority pollutant list, many of which are far 
more toxic than PAHs and PCBs, and we have very little data on those types of 


72 


compounds. Finally, we must know more about the physics of the Boston Harbor system 
to address mass balance questions. Only with these additional pieces of information can 
we begin to understand how, if, and over what time frame will various costly 
environmental management options affect the recovery of the Boston Harbor estuary 
(Table 5). 


73 


TABLE 5, 


INFORMATION NEEDS 


1. RESIDENCE TIMES OF CONTAMINANTS IN SEDIMENTS AND WATER 
COLUMN. 

2. POLLUTANT MASS LOADING DATA ON SEWAGE EFFLUENTS AND 
STORM WATER RUNOFF. 

3. WATER COLUMN PARTICULATE POLLUTANT CONCENTRATIONS 
AND FLUXES OF PARTICULATES FROM HARBOR TO 
MASSACHUSETTS BAY; FATE OF SEWAGE PLUMES. 

4. TEMPORAL INFORMATION ON CONTAMINANT TRENDS; OTHER 
CONTAMINANTS OF CONCERN. 


74 






REFERENCES 


Boehm, P.D. 1982. New York Bight Benthic Sampling Survey: Coprostanol, 

Polychorinated Biphenyl and Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbon Measurements 
in Sediments. Final Report, NOAA Contract NA-81-FA-C-00013, 
NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service, Sandy Hook, NJ. 21 pp. 

Boehm, P.D., S. Drew, T. Dorsey, J. Yarko, N. Mosesman, A. Jefferies, D. Pilson, and D. 

Fiest. 1984. Organic pollutants in New York Bight suspended particulates: 
Waste deposits versus riverine/estuarine sources. In: Wastes m the Ocean, 
Vol. 6 - Nearshore Waste Disposal . John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY. 

MacLeod, W.D., Jr., L.S. Ramos, A.J. Friedman, D.G. Burrows, P.G. Prohaska, D.L. 

Fisher and D.W. Brown. 1981. Analysis of residual chlorinated hydrocarbons 
aromatic hydrocarbons, and related compounds in selected sources, sinks, and 
biota of the New York Bight. NOAA Technical Memorandum, OMPA-6, 
NOAA, Office of Marine Pollution Assessment, Boulder, CO. 128 pp. 

O'Connor, J.M., J.B. Klotz and T.J. Kneip. 1982. Sources, sinks, and distribution of 
organic contaminants in the New York Bight ecosystem, pp. 631-655 In: G. 
Mayer (Ed.) Ecological Stress and The New York Bight . Science and 
Management, Estuarine Research Federation, Columbia, SC. 


75 































HEPATIC HISTOPATHOLOGY OF WINTER FLOUNDER FROM BOSTON HARBOR 

by 

Dr. Robert Murchelano 
National Marine Fisheries Service 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
Department of Commerce 
Woods Hole, MA 

I was planning on sitting in the audience today until Betsy (Dr. Betsy Brown) 
found out that I was attending this seminar. 

I would like to show you representative hepatic lesions of winter flounder from 
Boston Harbor. I have told colleagues at the Weymouth Fish Disease Laboratory in 
England that I initiated this study to test a hypothesis. The hypothesis was that the 
dumping of tea, as practiced by the colonists and as instigated by my colleagues' 
ancestors, compromised fish health in Boston Harbor. I may have to accept this 
hypothesis, so bear in mind that tea is still one of the possible causes of these lesions. 

Actually, the hypothesis that I wanted to test (I am grateful that Leigh, Mr. 
Leigh Bridges didn't lead into it in his presentation) was whether one disease which is 
associated with poor environmental quality, possibly predicts the presence of another in 
another tissue. That one disease is fin rot. 

Fin rot is a disease of winter flounder that I have studied for many years. 
Even though Carl (Dr. Carl Sindermann) is here, I am going to say that it was under his 
"gentle prodding" in the early 1970s that I became intimately involved in studies of fin rot 
in the New York Bight. I was trying to find out what caused this elusive disease. I still do 
not know what causes it nor does anyone else. 

However, one thing did appear quite clear from our studies, to me at least, fin 
rot was a symptom of unfavorable environmental conditions. When I was asked by 
Harriett Diamond (Coastal Zone Management (CZM), Commonwealth of Massachusetts) to 
review some documents for the 301(h) waiver in Boston Harbor, specifically in the area of 
biological effects, I saw tabular data which revealed that approximately 46 to 47 percent 
of winter flounder from the Deer Island area of the Harbor had fin rot. 

This finding signified that perhaps other aspects of the animals' health were 
compromised. Therefore, and as Leigh mentioned, in April 1984 after a joint meeting in 
Boston with staff of CZM and the Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF), I was sent 100 jars 
containing formalin-fixed livers of Boston Harbor winter flounder (collected by DMF 
staff). I did not see the fish, only their livers as fixed tissues in jars of formaldehyde. I 
did not know where the fish came from in the Harbor or if, in fact, they came from the 
Harbor. Boston Harbor is a large area, and all areas of the Harbor are not the same. I 
would like to show you some pictures and photomicrographs today and will begin with the 
disease which led to the finding of the Boston Harbor winter flounder liver tumors. 


77 


Figure 1 was taken by Mr. John O'Reilly of the Sandy Hook Laboratory many 
years ago, in the early 1970s. Because it probably is one of the better photographs, I have 
used it repeatedly. It shows a winter flounder with large portions of its anal and dorsal 
fins missing. One can see the missing parts; however, if one does not know this fish, the 
dorsal fin normally extends much more than as shown. Quite a bit of fin tissue is missing 
in this fish. In closer view, one would see that there is considerable resolution and that 
the tissue is healing. Rather than a gaping wound, new^tissue has grown to seal off the 
environment from the tissues of the fish. 

Figure 2 presents an old graph, and I do not know what years it represents. 
However, it most probably summarizes data acquired in the early 1970s when we were 
studying the distribution and prevalence of fin rot disease in the New York Bight winter 
flounder. In addition to the distribution and prevalence of the disease in winter flounder, 
we also studied its cause or etiology. Unfortunately the latter is much more difficult to 
resolve. 


We designated areas that we knew, on the basis of obvious characteristics, 
that had compromised environmental quality, such as, Sandy Hook and Raritan Bays. We 
then selected an area that was near these areas, was accessible to us, and was relatively 
"pristine": Great Bay on the south shore of New Jersey. We made surveys over the years 
to contrast the prevalence of fin rot disease in these two regions. With the assistance of 
Dr. Joel O'Connor of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ocean 
Assessments Division, we made some statistical evaluations which substantiated that a 
difference in prevalence existed between the two areas. We did not know what 
specifically caused the difference; we only knew that there was a difference. 

For the last five years at least, we have been involved in much offshore 
surveillance, that is, looking at lesion prevalence in fishes from depths greater than 91 
feet and over a broad geographic area. Figure 3 shows that the area surveyed extends 
from the Delaware Bay all the way to the Merrimack River. These studies were done in 
concert with bottom fish stock assessment surveys of the Woods Hole Laboratory. We 
decided to add disease observations to the procedures necessary to determine age, growth, 
fecundity, and predator-prey relationships. We surveyed two offshore areas and several 
inshore ones. We selected these areas for certain reasons, of course, and then on the basis 
of many thousands of observations, looked at the distribution of diseases like fin rot. 

All data gathering and statistics for this were done by a colleague at the Sandy 
Hook Laboratory, Mr. John Ziskowski. The diseases noted do not necessarily compromise 
fish health, but are primarily markers. They are markers because there is evidence in 
some parts of the world of an association, which might be more than casual, between the 
numeric prevalence of these diseases and poor environmental quality. This is not illogical. 

Upon completing these studies, we plotted the distribution of fin rot, 
lymphocystis, ulcers, ambicoloration, and a few other conditions, in the geographic areas 
surveyed. We quite clearly saw that the prevalences of the diseases were discontinuous. 
Higher prevalences occurred in areas adjacent to high population densities. That is not 
unusual. We could have predicted that at the beginning; however, we had to substantiate 
our hypothesis with data. 


78 



Figure 1. Winter Flounder with Fin Rot Disease. 


7S 


Offshore Incidence of Fin Rot in Winter Flounder 



SPRING SUMMER FALL WINTER SPRING 




SPRING SUMMER FALL WINTER SPRING 


Figure 2. Prevalence of Fin Rot Disease in Winter Flounder from the New York Bight 
Apex and Offshore Areas Outside the Apex. 


80 












Figure 3. Area Surveyed for External Fish Diseases and Anomalies During Conduct of 
Fish Stock Assessment Cruises in the Northwest Atlantic. 


81 











On the basis of this study, which showed that certain diseases seem to be more 
prevalent in areas where there is compromised environmental quality, we decided to look 
at other more metabolically important tissues. Perhaps we would find other evidence of 
disease. 


One of the biomedical disciplines that we use very extensively at the Oxford 
Laboratory is an observational one called histopathology; however, it is not the only 
discipline of pathology. Histopathology can be very useful in the study of fish diseases, 
especially when other disciplines are poorly developed. We were intent on examining 
metabolic tissues such as the liver. I looked first at fish livers from Narragansett Bay 
and Long Island Sound. I found certain lesions which were significant and which were, as 
Leigh Bridges has said, identified as carcinomas (cancers). Then the opportunity to 
examine livers of winter flounder from Boston Harbor was provided. I did not pre-select 
Massachusetts with any malice in mind, but went there because winter flounder from the 
Harbor had fin rot. When I examined the liver tissues sent to me by DMF, I found the 
tumors I wish to present today. 

The resources made available to me for sampling Boston Harbor winter 
flounder are those of the DMF. As Leigh has mentioned, I have used the FC Wilbour at 
least five times. I was very fortunate to be able to trawl effectively; unfortunately, the 
boat is not adequate for doing much laboratory-oriented work. Trawl catches from Boston 
Harbor are essentially monotypic. When the cod end is opened and dumped on the deck, 
the catch is composed almost exclusively of winter flounder. I desperately wanted to find 
other fish from this area to examine; however, I could not because they were not present. 

Our laboratory table, at least on the first cruise, was quite rudimentary 
consisting of an abandoned boat hatch and a lobster pot. Mr. Vincent Durso, a staff 
member from DMF, assisted me as we necropsied fish at the naval shipyard in 
Charlestown. We laboriously examined fish after fish looking for gross lesions. 

Figure 4 illustrates a fish liver in which the functional cells of the liver, such 
as the hepatocytes, contain large vacuoles. Low magnifications of sections of liver with 
these highly vacuolated cells show that they cause the liver surface to bulge 
outwards. The gross appearance of the lesion, therefore, would be that of a tumor. 

This vacuolated cell was very common in livers of winter flounder from Boston 
Harbor. It was present in winter flounder from Narragansett Bay and Long Island Sound 
also, but never to the extent evident in Boston Harbor fish. On the basis of other cellular 
changes that were present, I began to think that the vacuolated cell was somehow part of 
the progression to neoplasia. 

Most of the guidance for naming these lesions is based on research done 
primarily with rodents by veterinary and human pathologists. For legal implications of 
what is found in studies of experimental carcinogenicity, the rat is the most acceptable 
surrogate. Terminology that is used to describe lesions in rats is the terminology used in 


82 




Figure 4. Vacuolated Hepatocytes in Liver of Winter Flounder from Boston Harbor. 


83 


the courts. The lesions I will describe are named to correspond with terminology 
suggested for rodent hepatic lesions induced by experimental carcinogens. 

There is a sequence of changes in the liver which takes place from the action 
of a carcinogen. One of the early lesions (although there is some debate on this) is the 
formation of chromatically-altered foci, or changes in color of the parenchymal cells. 

Figure 5 shows an area of chromatic change^in the center of some hepatocytes 
with cytoplasmic inclusions (probably containing fat). The cells have greater affinity for 
the stain than adjacent cells. This is significant and should not be ignored. The lesion is 
called a basophilic focus because its color is blue after staining with hematoxylin and 
eosin (H&E). These chromatically altered foci can be quite large and easily seen at low 
magnification. In fact, some of these foci can be detected with a hand lens, regardless of 
whether they are basophilic or eosinophilic (red with H&E). 

Figure 6 illustrates a lesion at low magnification visible not only with a hand 
lens, but with the naked eye. One easily can recognize a distinct tumor in this 
photomicrograph with a well-defined outline. As you will see later, this lesion is not very 
different from the one in the preceding figure, but its cellular characteristics and well- 
defined configuration elevate it to something more in the nomenclatural heirarchy of 
these lesions. It is designated a hepatocellular adenoma; the hepatic cords outside the 
tumor are compressed. The cords in the tumor are virtually at right angles to the cords 
outside the tumor. As the mass increases in size, it does so at the expense of adjacent 
tissue. When this happens, and when certain other characteristics are evident, the lesion 
is designated a hepatocellular adenoma. With mammals, and man primarily, it would be 
considered a benign lesion. Unfortunately designation as benign or malignant in fish is not 
possible using only histologic criteria. If I showed a higher magnification, we could see 
evidence of cell replication from the presence of mitotic figures. 

Vacuolated hepatocyte foci are common in livers of Boston Harbor winter 
flounder and frequently contain other cells in the vacuolated cell areas. These cells are 
chromatically, cytologically, and organizationally different from the vacuolated cells. In 
many instances, they have the appearance of early neoplasms. Seventy-seven percent of 
the winter flounder examined from Boston Harbor have vacuolar cell lesions. That is a 
very significant number, especially because there appears to be a relationship between the 
vacuolar lesions and the neoplastic ones. If the presence of vacuolar cells signifies 
eventual transformation to neoplastic cells, 77 percent is a very alarming number. 

Figure 7 shows some chromatically different cells together with vacuolated 
cells. Some pathologists might not designate the lesion as neoplastic, probably because 
they have not examined adequate numbers of histologic sections to interpret the 
significance of the lesion with respect to other neoplastic ones. In Figure 7, the 
neoplastic cells are trying to form bile ducts. Their destiny, if they are derived from 
precursors of duct epithelial cells, is to form bile ducts. 


84 



Figure 5. Basophilic Focus in Liver of Winter Flounder from Boston Harbor. 


85 





Figure 6. Hepatocellular Adenoma in Liver of Winter Flounder from Boston Harbor. 


86 



Figure 7. Early Cholangiocarcinoma in Vacuolated Hepatocyte Focus in Liver of 
Winter Flounder from Boston Harbor. 


87 


Figure 8 illustrates a cholangiocarcinoma. When these lesions are large, as is 
evident in many histologic sections, they are grossly apparent. There are many 
morphologic variants of the tumors I have shown. 

Some neoplasms are well-differentiated and relatively uniform in architecture. 
However, there are morphologic variants of cholangiocarcinomas that are very bizarre. 
The morphologic patterns of the neoplasms resemble those induced in rodents with 
experimental carcinogens. 

Figure 9 shows a carcinoma that a pathologist would characterize as 
anaplastic. An anaplastic neoplasm is one whose constituent cells are not well 
differentiated and which do not resemble those of normal tissue. Numerous mitotic 
figures are present, some very large and containing excess numbers of chromosomes 
(polyploid). All of these features are characteristic of lesions which generally are 
metastatic; however, whether these lesions metastasize presently is unknown. 

Figure 10 illustrates chromatically distinct cells in cardiac muscle that are not 
inflammatory cells, that is they are not leukocytes. If one looks at the lesion at higher 
magnification, the cells resemble hepatic tumor cells, cells of a hepatic carcinoma. This 
could be the first metastasis documented in these fish. This finding suggests that these 
fish have a lesion which is biologically or behaviorally comparable to that of warm¬ 
blooded animals and, therefore, might take the same course. 

I will finish by showing you the gross lesions last because they will impress you 
more than the photomicrographs. If you have ever seen a normal winter flounder liver, 
you know that it is essentially homogeneous in color, usually coffee-brown, although the 
color depends on the nutritional status of the fish and the time of the year. The liver in 
Figure 11 is not normal. Almost all of the discrete, nodular areas are tumors. The 
specific kind of tumor is unknown until one examines the tissues microscopically. I also 
have shown you the worst-case situation to impress you. I did not show you pictures of 
livers with only a few nodules; however, they are quite common. 

Boston Harbor winter flounder with tumors look normal like their cohorts. 
One could easily ask whether the lesion has any significance on the health of the fish. 
There is much to do to resolve what the lesions ultimate effect is, either for individual 
fish or populations of fishes. 

In closing I would like to acknowledge the assistance provided me by Dr. Clyde 
Dawe formerly of the National Cancer Institute, and now at Harvard Medical School and 
Woods Hole. Dr. Dawe first described hepatic neoplasms in wild fish from polluted water 
and his assistance and interest have been invaluable. He has made all of the collecting 
trips with me, in fact, he made one trip without me because of lack of funds for my travel 
to Boston from Maryland. Thank you. 


88 



Figure 8. Cholangiocarcinoma in Liver of Winter Flounder from Boston Harbor. 


89 



Figure 9. Anaplastic Adenocarcinoma in Liver of Winter Flounder from Boston 
Harbor. 


90 



Figure 10. 


Possible Metastatic Hepatocarcinoma in Heart Muscle of Winter Flounder 
from Boston Harbor. 


91 



Figure 11. Multinodular Liver from a Boston Harbor Winter Flounder. 


92 




Question and Answer Discussion 
Dr. Brown: We have time for a few questions. 

Question: Bob, did you say that 77 percent of the fish that you collected had 

cancer? 


R. Murchelano: No. I said that 77 percent of the fish in Boston Harbor have 
vacuolated hepatic parenchymal cells. Because I believe that the origin of the neoplastic 
cells is related to the vacuolated cells, then there is a potential for many more fish with 
liver cancers than has been noted. 

Question: You have shown us a string of precursors to the development of 
hepatic carcinomas. 

R. Murchelano: No, not necessarily. I showed you a string of precursors which 
are implicated in studies of experimental carcinogenesis in rodents. I believe that the 
vacuolated cell is associated in some way with neoplastic cells. The winter flounder have 
other lesions similar to those of rodents. There is some speculation as to whether these 
other lesions, the basophilic and eosinophilic foci, and the hepatocellular adenoma, are 
steps in the transition to the carcinoma. No one knows that for certain. 

Question: Have residue analyses been performed on these fish? 

R. Murchelano: Leigh mentioned that analyses have been conducted for PCBs 
on livers and flesh; that is it so far. I have bile stored that I want analyzed as soon as 
possible. I also have gonadal tissue stored for analysis. 

Question: Does the incidence of cancer vary with age in Boston Harbor? 

R. Murchelano: I did not tell you about the internal bias I used during 
sampling. I biased my collection for fish over 35 cm in length. I did that for two reasons. 
One, if induction requires a long latency period, as is well known in some cancers, the 
longer the time, the better. Second, it is well-known that immune mechanisms, both 
cellular and humoral, are compromised with age. I do not want to convey that I have 
exhaustively studied this lesion. The only thing that has been done so far is a morphologic 
study. There is a lot more that must be done. 

Question: Do you know anything at all about the length of life of these fish 
versus some that don't have the tumor? 

R. Murchelano: No. Leigh may have mentioned something about that, but I do 
not know how life span may be compromised. 


$3 


Question: Bob, I take it from the last statement of your presentation that fin 
rot disease does not go hand in hand with these liver tissue carcinomas. 

R. Murchelano: No, it does not. If you asked me to tell you how many winter 
flounder had fin rot, how many had tumors, and how mariy shared the two phenomena, I 
could not tell you. I have not even looked at the size distribution of the fish with tumors 
except roughly within the size ranges that I have collected. I have been totally involved 
determining the identity of the lesion, and that has been affected by consultation with 
people who know. 

C. Sinderman: I wondered if you had started the long-term experiments that 
lead to the induction of these lesions? 

R. Murchelano: No. 

C. Sinderman: Is that a part of the plan? 

R. Murchelano: I can plan all kinds of things, but I can not effect them. I 
have a long list of plans. 

C. Sindermann: It would seem quite important to get it going. 

R. Murchelano: One of the things that is of considerable interest is the 
stomach contents of this animal. As was mentioned this morning, in every collection I 
have made, the stomachs contain only polychaetes. We have bounced a benthic grab off 
the bottom several times, but did not obtain any worms. I would like to have the 
polychaetes analyzed for various organic contaminants. If anyone knows anything about 
the histology of the worms, someone ought to look at them for lesions. The worms 
certainly are a preferred food of Boston Harbor winter flounder. 

Dr. Brown: Thank you very much. 


94 


MULTIPLE USES AND MANAGEMENT 
by 

Mr. Richard Delaney 
Executive Director 

Massachusetts Office of Coastal Management 
Boston, MA 

I want to extend my thanks to NOAA and EPA for hosting this forum this 
afternoon, to the scientists and fellow colleagues on the panel who have provided some 
interesting information and expertise to the session, and to the rest of you for enduring 
six hours of Boston Harbor pollution talk. We in Boston have been dealing with this for a 
while now, and, of course, misery loves company, so I am pleased to see you all here and 
interested in our problems, and hopefully part of the solution. 

I will focus not so much on the pollution aspect or the technical side, but will 
talk more about the Harbor and its multiple uses and the management challenges that it 
presents. I would say that in many cases, the management challenges are as complex and 
as perplexing as the scientific challenges. 

The message, however, will be that while the competing demands for use of 
the Harbor are increasing dramatically and the complexity of managing those competing 
demands is also increasing, I do believe we are making some significant progress. I say 
"we" collectively to mean local, state, and Federal officials, and interested groups 
working together to make some significant progress in managing these competing demands 
in a reasonable and balanced fashion. As always, there is still much more to do. 

I will start with the one use of the Harbor that has been a dominant theme 
today: the use of the Harbor as a receptacle for sewage waste which seems to dominate 
the news in Boston. In fact, it was in the news in Boston 50 years ago this week. On June 
11, 1935, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law that was basically one page long, 
saying that oil, its byproducts, refuse, and other material shall be prohibited from being 
dumped into Boston Harbor. 

Interestingly enough, almost 50 years later that same legislative body, the 
Massachusetts legislature, passed another law which you heard about this morning. That 
law created the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA), the purpose of which 
was to put into place a mechanism that would have the fiscal, technical, and 
administrative capability of carrying out the cleanup of the Harbor and reversing 50 or 
150 to 200 years of using the Harbor as a receptacle for waste. I am not sure if that 
means we are making progress, going backwards, going sideways, or sinking under the 
whole thing. But it is an interesting juxtaposition. One similarity in the two bills is that 
they were passed by the same state legislature. In fact, there may actually be some 
senators and representatives who were there in 1935 who, are still there with us. 


95 


The differences are striking. A one-page bill compared to what was about 150 
pages of narrative to create the MWRA. The size of Boston Harbor has changed 
dramatically over the years. The numbers of people and agencies involved in dealing with 
the Harbor has increased dramatically. What is most instructive of those two bills is that 
the complexity of this issue has dramatically increased technically, politically, and 
fiscally. 


It is probably even more instructive to go back 100 or 200 years to some of the 
early citizens of Boston who really did live beside perhaps what would be more truly 
classified as an estuary than today's Harbor. There were more mud flats and salt marshes, 
and more fresh water exchange with the Harbor, which, at that time, was not coming 
through sewage discharges either. 

One or two hundred years ago, people perceived the Harbor not as an estuary, 
unfortunately, but as a place to discard their wastes, to fill in, and to create more land. 
The early rudimentary pipes that came from individuals' homes bringing wastes into the 
nearest stream and to the Harbor were eventually culverted and covered over. We are 
left today with a legacy of antiquated systems upon which we are trying to make 
adjustments to clean up the Harbor. 

Today, we have made some progress. There has been a decision about the 
301(h) waiver. We are changing to secondary treatment barring any reversal of that 
because of a successful challenge in the court, which I hope does not happen. That, of 
course, means a number of things including a better level of sewage treatment. But it 
also requires us to look for a site with twice as much acreage. It will mean an increased 
amount of sludge as the byproduct of the treatment, and increased difficulties in finding a 
location somewhere adjacent to the Harbor where we will be able to successfully site a 
treatment plant. One of the management steps the state has taken to solve some of the 
sewage problems is the creation of the MWRA, which is charged now with finding a site 
for the new plant and moving forward with its implementation. 

Another part of the cleanup strategy in the Harbor will be dealing with CSOs, 
and I know all of you people in Washington hear the acronym CSO and think of the Coastal 
States Organization, which is what you should think of. It is the foremost group for 
representing coastal issues here in Washington with a very excellent staff. Unfortunately, 
in Boston we think of CSOs as the combined sewer overflows that contribute in some 
cases almost, at least by some estimates, as much as half of the contaminants to our 
Harbor. We need the MWRA, in combination with our state agencies and significant 
federal help, to address the CSO problem. Fortunately, we have had a 30 million dollar 
appropriation to deal with perhaps the worst of the CSOs, for example, at Fox Point 
coming out from underneath the main dock at the Savin Hill Yacht Club in Dorchester. 
That one will be cleaned up, renovated, and put back into operation. 

Another component of our cleanup strategy involves the pretreatment of 
sewage before it goes into the system. That will be a critical part of the operation no 
matter what level of treatment, where the plant is sited, or how we deal with our sludge. 


96 


As an example of the political, economic, and management difficulties of this issue, the 
MWRA recently discussed increasing its enforcement and monitoring efforts in the 
pretreatment program. In reaction this week, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, 
a group of the major industries in the state, held a meeting where they cried that pre¬ 
treatment is too costly, is unnecesary, is not scientifically justified, is not technically 
justified, and is going to hurt business in Massachusetts. We are again caught in that 
conflict between the quality of the environment and the health of the economy. None of 
these decisions are easy. 

The sludge decision, which will be a fourth component of our strategy and on 
which we have been working diligently in recent years, will involve major policy decisions, 
all of which will require sound technical advice. We are hoping to be able to create a 
composting operation with the sludge; yet that has some technical difficulties. Another 
option is to incinerate the sludge, which is one of the standard procedures, but one that 
creates air pollution and may threaten our health and the citizens of Massachusetts. A 
third option would be to dispose of the sludge in the ocean, which has a possible negative 
ramification in terms of the food chain and the quality of our waters. What we have been 
talking about and hoping to pursue with some of our scientific expertise in the state is a 
true multi-media assessment of the impacts of these options so we can use a good data 
base to make public policy decisions. 

Another use of Boston Harbor is the fisheries: shellfishing, finfishing, and 
lobstering. It has been part of our history and part of our heritage to look to the Harbor 
for that kind of a use over the years. Unfortunately, at this point we literally have 
millions of dollars of unharvested shellfish in Boston Harbor and elsewhere in the adjacent 
waters; but, because of the contamination, an economic resource that is going untapped. 

Fishing is a great economic and natural resource that needs support and is 
under tremendous pressure from pollution. Another kind of pressure, an economic and 
management pressure on the industry, is that the piers and docks vital to sustaining this 
industry are in a state of disrepair in Boston Harbor. The uses of that shorefront and 
those docks as lobster or fisheries landing facilities are being changed to non-water 
related uses, such as office buildings on the waterfront. 

As you can see, a tremendous user conflict has to be resolved. Our preference 
is to maintain the water-dependent, water-related use for the fishermen. The state is 
working to find ways to support the industry through grants to local towns to rebuild those 
piers and set aside property for the fishing industry. We have a situation right now where 
the Governor, the Cardinal, the Mayor, and everybody else is involved in trying to find a 
place for the lobstermen to land their lobsters because they have been recently evicted 
from their current pier. It is a major concern and another major use that needs some very 
careful management. 

A third and related use of the Harbor relates more to the shoreline uses. As I 
mentioned just a minute ago, the concern is to use this very unique piece of property for 
activities related to the waterfront. We made our first attempt at managing this when we 


97 


developed the Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Plan in our state back in 1978. As a 
component of that, we identified certain ports as "designated ports" where we have 
directed our state policies towards encouraging maritime-related uses. The standards are 
set in such a way that we encourage those kinds of industries to happen there as opposed 
to another place along the coastline. 

Most recently, and one of the more encouraging notes for us, is that in 
December 1983, the legislature passed a law that amended what we think is the oldest 
coastal regulatory law in the country: the tidelands license that our state has been issuing 
to people who do activities and build docks and piers along our coastline since the colonial 
days, back in the 1640s. At that time, the colonial government began to look at use of the 
shoreline and, in effect, tried to encourage people to use the waterfront to build docks 
and piers at their private owners' expense to promote the East India Trading Company and 
all the marine commerce that the colonists needed. 

That law had two basic interests it was protecting. One was to ensure that 
those projects built were structurally sound, and the other was that the structures did not 
interfere with overall navigation of the Harbor. Recently we have been able to add a 
third interest, which is called the public interest. Under that title, we are now able to 
condition projects so that they serve a proper public interest as opposed to just a private 
interest or gain. Definition of that "proper public interest" has changed over time from 
maritime commerce, which is still appropriate, but also now it includes the use of the 
waterfront for public access, physical and visual aesthetics, for supporting the fisheries, 
and for water dependent uses. This is an attempt to fend off the trend of non-water- 
related uses that are coming to the waterfront. Under this license, a proper public 
purpose is further defined to make sure that a project built along the waterfront notes the 
water quality and does not contribute to the degradation of that water quality. 

A fourth use that is becoming more popular, of course, is the Harbor as a 
recreational facility. The numbers of marinas, private sailboats, and motor boats that use 
the water is increasing tremendously. We have been blessed with a number of Harbor 
islands that are now a state park, the Boston Harbor Islands State Park. The state 
recently has invested millions of dollars in upgrading those parks and providing a 
commuter boat for citizens to get to them. We have renovated a historic fort on George's 
Island. We are rebuilding a major wharf right in the downtown waterfront area both as a 
visitors' center and to encourage more use of the islands. However, the obvious conflict or 
irony is that these wonderful islands are surrounded by very contaminated water. Thus, 
the cleanup process goes hand-in-hand with increased use of the islands as a recreational 
base. 


The Harbor also has not been used to its fullest advantage as a means for a 
water-based transportation, even though historically it was very active. There are 
photographs of literally hundreds of two and three-masted ships that would sail into 
Boston Harbor from nearby ports. Today, we do not see the same numbers of ships, but 
the numbers are increasing once again, and we have in just this morning's newspaper 
announced yet another boat being added to the fleet of commuter boats going back and 
forth between Boston and the South Shore communities. 


98 


Another aspect of the Harbor which is not particularly a use of the Harbor, but 
is an occasional necessity, is the recurring need to dredge certain parts of the Harbor. 
One of the speakers earlier this morning talked about this management problem. We have 
traditionally taken the dredge materials out to what is called the foul area some 12 miles 
off Marblehead and disposed of it there. We recently found that some of that material is 
not staying in place. We are now involved with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and 
EPA in doing some oceanographic analyses to study sediment transport from the foul area. 
Because much of this dredge material is highly contaminated, finding an appropriate site 
for it is another management issue. 

Needless to say, I have just given you a smattering of the different kinds of 
competing uses. There are many more perspectives of the Harbor and many competing 
uses. There is an increasing demand for more management and attention to these issues, 
and I think the institutional response is getting better. It had been ignored for sometime. 
The City of Boston, like other ports around the country, had turned its back on the 
Harbor. Now we have rediscovered it, and the governmental institutions are trying to 
catch up on managing the Harbor as a resource. 

The legislature has recognized the value of the Harbor by passing the Water 
Resources Authority Act earlier in 1983. It also passed a Coastal Protection Act, which 
established the Office of Coastal Zone Management as a permanent entity in the state. 
This Act essentially told the citizens and all the agencies that it was time to move 
forward in some comprehensive fashion based on a set of policies that were adopted by 
the state under the CZM Act and to work together to achieve some success in the Harbor. 

The Governor, certainly, has recognized the need for a coordinated effort in 
the Harbor; he has created a sub-cabinet, which is composed of key members of the 
various cabinets and key agencies. The prime focus, and the only focus, of this group is to 
work to bring all of the competing interests together through one office to make more 
efficient and effective decisions. 

The agencies clearly are aware of the need for sound management decisions. 
You have seen by the turnout today by the Division of Marine Fisheries and some of the 
other state agencies that there is an ongoing effort. We recently have created and 
organized a group of key individuals from the Division of Marine Fisheries, Department of 
Environmental Quality Engineering, Public Health Agency, and from CZM to work 
together to facilitate communication, to examine the ongoing research around the Harbor, 
and to help develop goals and strategies so we can more effectively work as a state with 
EPA, NOAA, and the private educational institutions in making progress. 

To end on an "up" note, we have heard a lot of disturbing comments about 
contamination and about competing uses, but I clearly and honestly believe we have 
reached a point where a lot of people are concerned and a lot of good talent and expertise 
are being focused on the Harbor. We are very pleased to see the Federal Government 
doing the same thing, with both NOAA and EPA creating estuary programs. It is certainly 
going to be a step in the right direction. We hope that the budgets in the U.S. Congress 
can continue to reflect that kind of a priority. 


99 


We need funds for research. We need funds for good coastal management, and 
we need to have the CZM act reauthorized. There is a true need for the federal-state 
partnership to continue in this area. Meetings like this v today are encouraging and I hope 
they continue. 

I will be glad to answer a question or two if you have some. Yes, Sir? 

Question and Answer Discussion 

Question: Isn't Boston Harbor the place where you have an LNG terminal? 

R. Delaney; Yes, it is and, in fact, traffic in Logan Airport is redirected at 
that time. All Harbor traffic is cleared out the Harbor. There are six tugboats that 
surround the LNG tanker when it comes in. It does go under the Mystic River Bridge and 
has to go under at the right tide. If it goes under at high tide, we are all in trouble. 

Question: I haven't heard anything about rehabilitation of the major problems 
of your bays, estuaries or Harbors in Massachusetts. What thoughts have you given to 
rehabilitating these locations? 

R. Delaney: Rehabilitation in terms of removing the contaminated sediments 
in the harbors? 

Question: Well, whatever. 

R. Delaney: We are really not quite at that point yet. I guess we are looking 
at, at least in Boston Harbor, stopping or reducing the amount of pollution being 
contributed to the Harbor by upgrading treatment plants, by finding a solution to our 
sludge problems, and by repairing our combined sewer overflows. At that point we may be 
able to look at some rehabilitation, and that is, I'm sure, many years down the road. 

For example, in another area in Massachusetts, New Bedford Harbor, we have 
a similar and very disturbing PCB contamination problem in the sediments in the bottom 
of that harbor. It has become a Superfund site. We are now involved in developing with 
the EPA the strategy for rehabilitating that situation. It's very, very difficult. It's very 
expensive, and the scale of that is unbelievable. In fact, I think the solution might be that 
the best we can do is just cap the PCB hotspots in the Harbor and not go the alternative 
route, which is to try to remove essentially several square miles of acreage in the bottom 
of that harbor, and in the process churning up and resuspending many of those 
contaminated sediments. 

So, no, we are really not at the stage where we have active—unless some of 
my staff can help me out—rehabilitation projects going on. 

Question: In earlier years we received a certain amount of tax funds for 
research. Do you see anything like this coming out in Massachusetts where funds can 
come from local and state government for this use? 


100 


R. Delaney: Yes. Possibly. One of the most recent bills that we passed—and I 
mentioned this—is this Chapter 91 Amendment. It is the license that is issued by the 
state to someone, a project proponent, who is going to do some work in the tidelands. 
Traditionally, as I mentioned, that license has been given fairly cavalierly and without any 
major fee. 


The newest regulations that we are about to promulgate will increase that fee 
significantly so that the true value of that property, that undervalued coastal property, is 
reflected in the license. One of our hopes is that that money can then be redirected back 
at related projects like research on the waterfront and acquisition of waterfront property. 

Dr. Brown: Thank you. 


101 















































PANEL DISCUSSION 


B. Brown: There are many areas where we still have information gaps that are 
important in making management decisions in the Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay area. 
I'd like to ask some of the speakers to address what they think are the data gaps still 
missing. I'll start with Gene Gallagher. 

G. Gallagher: I think the physical oceanography of Boston Harbor and 
Massachusetts Bay is first and foremost. It was pointed out to me during the break that 
there are existing models of the circulation in Massachusetts Bay. The major one that has 
been used is called CAFE. It was developed at MIT, and used by the MDC section 301(h) 
waiver. 


We need more sophisticated modeling efforts for understanding the currents in 
Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. We need to know the sources of the pollutants, but 
we also need to know the mechanisms of transport. We must understand the physical 
oceanography to look at the exchange between the Inner Harbor in Boston and the Outer 
Harbor as a major source of pollution as well as the exchange processes between Boston 
Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. 

The reason sophisticated models are needed is that what we know about 
circulation is very complex. The Harbor is very shallow, and also circulation is dominated 
by tidal forcing and wind effects. So we need models to incorporate wind sheer stress. 

In the last 5 or 6 years, there have been tremendous advancements in the field 
of physical oceanography in putting together both finite element difference models which 
could handle wind sheer stress. I think the major thing limiting our understanding of 
Massachusetts Bay is the physical oceanography. Once we begin putting those pieces 
together, it will help us look at coupling the output. If we know the output of pollutants, 
we will know more about determining where they are going and their effects. 

B. Brown: Leigh Bridges? 

L. Bridges: Well, from the point of view of the fisheries, I think our 
understanding of the contamination problem manifested by the carcinoma in flounder has 
to be broadened. The second species that needs to be looked at is lobster, and that should 
be done immediately. Moreover, I think Dr. Murchelano indicated that the fish that have 
been studied, to date, have been looked at or sampled on the basis of trying to find a 
flounder in this condition. 

We have to establish a sampling program that would be less biased in terms of 
discovering what percentage of the population is affected. Secondly, we should 
determine, if possible, what long-term effect pollution might have on the population of 
winter flounder and lobster if they are affected. At this point in time, we don't know 
whether they are affected, but quite possibly that they are. 


103 


From the contaminant point of view, more sediment analysis has to be done to 
find out the contaminant levels in the sediments, where the hotspots are, and what the 
sources of the PAHs are. Currently, we have no knowledge-of what those sources are. 

B. Brown: What do you know about the shellfish populations in terms of the 
presence of neoplasia? 

L. Bridges: 1 would have to plead a little ignorance because we've harvested 
shellfish in Boston Harbor for a great number of years, even though it has been polluted. 
They are depurated by use of untraviolet lights and then, they are marketed. There is a 
very strong demand by restaurants in the Boston area and the North Shore for Harbor 
shellfish. When the shellfish come out of the depuration plant, it is believed that they are 
an excellent quality product. And of course, when you depurate shellfish, you're 
depurating in terms of bacteria. You are not getting out viruses or viral infections within 
the animal. 


Tufts University scientists have recently found out that many of the shellfish 
throughout our state have a form of blood cancer or abnormalities in the blood system, 
which they feel are either precancerous or cancerous. I think there is some debate as to 
how far this goes back historically because apparently they have found this condition in 
New Bedford Harbor shellfish. However, our people indicate, that this condition was not 
prevalent in 1976. So we really don't know a lot about shellfish pathology. And one of the 
things that the state agencies need is more expertise in pathology. 

M. Barber: Is there a sensitivity to testing of lobster flesh and shellfish? 
Earlier on, someone said that citizen involvement would help as far as any known 
problems dealing with getting monies. Is there a citizen sensitivity, either from the 
fishing community or the citizens themselves, about not wanting to know what's in the 
flesh? 


L. Bridges: There's been a lot of publicity about the problems in Boston 
Harbor and the problems in New Bedford Harbor with PCBs. There is a resistance within 
the industry, particularly the lobster industry, as a result of the New Bedford Harbor 
problem. When you have a contamination problem that affects an economically valuable 
resource, then producers of that resource resist actually finding out the root of the 
problem, because when the public becomes concerned, the consumption rate drops 
drastically after media publicity. 

For example, this spring the flounder fishery in Boston Harbor, suffered from a 
drop in participation by anglers because of the adverse publicity on the flounder 
themselves. I don't want to get into the question of whether the carcinoma in Boston 
Harbor is a problem as far as human health is concerned. That's not my expertise, and I 
don't have any background in that. The adverse publicity has affected the flounder fishery 
in Boston Harbor this year, and it has affected the lobster industry in the past in the South 
Shore in terms of PCBs. So it is a factor; there's no question about it. 


104 


I think part of the problem is that the producing industry feels that every time 
a contamination problem comes to the forefront~in the 1970s, it was mercury—the 
fishing industry is the one that suffers. There is no remedy to the situation of polluters 
who are causing the problem. I think the fishing industry in New Bedford took the two 
polluters in New Bedford to court and lost. They sued them for damages on the potential 
harvest that was lost, and they lost. They had no recourse, no remedy from the court. 

M. Barber: Was that a state court? 

L. Bridges: That was a Federal district court. 

B. Brown: Paul Boehm, is there anything you'd like to discuss or Gordon 
Wallace, either one, on potential data gaps that you can identify? 

P. Boehm: I think Gene hit on some of the major data gaps as far as 
circulation and fluxes from the Harbor to Massachusetts Bay. The whole issue of 
pollutant mass loadings is important. The contributions of the sewage effluents and the 
sludge effluents versus the combined sewage overflows, river discharges, and 
concentrations of toxic organic compounds in the Charles River is substantial. And 
Gordon showed some overall flow calculations, about 35 percent of the water flow from 
rivers. If the trapping efficiency of Boston Harbor is 3 percent for the sewage, then 
something doesn't add up. There's a lot going on that's causing both the higher levels and 
the whole range of problems we're seeing here other than just the sewage situation. 

In terms of management decisions, there's a major effort focused on the MDC. 
Maybe that's the story; that's what the public believes. Maybe that's the right answer 
right now. But I really don't think it's the whole story. In terms of one of the biggest data 
gaps, it's just the contributions from all the sources and what else needs controlling. 

J. Thomas: I'd like to add something concerning that. With regard to the 
Charles River, there's a lock at the base of the Charles River. It's usually assumed that 
most of the contaminant material goes with the particulate phase. I would assume that 
the locks should cause some sedimentation of the particulates in the Charles River above 
the locks. Perhaps if we want to protect the Harbor, we can certainly make the Charles 
worse. Do you have any comments on that one way or the other? 

P. Boehm: It gets really down to the Charles permanently so that nothing gets 
out. I really don't have any comments on it—maybe Gordon knows something more about 
the flux from the Charles. 

G. Wallace: I've only taken one sample behind the dam of the Charles River. 
This was a monograph we were working on. The metal levels there indicated that the 
Charles was not a significant source, at least for metals, going into the Harbor. I think 
you're absolutely right. There is a high suspended load and much material is effectively 
trapped behind the dam and, therefore, is not getting into the Harbor. But, what I've said 


105 


is based on one sample taken at one time. Certainly, more needs to be done before any 
quantitative statements can be made. 

P. Boehm: I think that the bulk of all the material would enter the system 
during a heavy rainstorm; a time when people gather information least. 

G. Wallace: I'd just like to echo what Gene and Paul said about physical 
oceanography, because none of us can look at geochemical cycling and transport unless we 
understand the basic physics of the system. That's going to be a big concern for 
management. I've already mentioned the problems with copper. Some of the other metals 
are at or would violate the revised clean water standards. In addition, unless we know 
what to expect if we go to secondary treatment and reduce that particulate loading on the 
Harbor water quality and, therefore, can predict what the maximum permissible loading 
was, we're potentially faced with building an extended outfall which is not a trivial 
undertaking. I don't know what the cost would be; I would imagine it would be in the 
hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Question: Somebody mentioned that there are a lot of academic institutions in 
that area, and yet there doesn't seem to be a tremendous amount of involvement in that 
area in terms of research. Is this because the area is small, or the problem is not 
recognized? Why do you think this is the case? 

G. Wallace: May I answer that? I'm glad you asked. MIT, for example, is a 
Sea Grant organization that has tried to put a comprehensive program together for the 
Harbor, and it just wasn't interesting to any of the funding agencies. We've only been 
there for 3 years, and we have several grants now that are actively involved with work in 
the Harbor in one aspect or another. 

Most people at MIT, in terms of my field of geochemistry, are interested in 
offshore, blue-water work. That's the same for Woods Hole. And that's where additional 
funding has gone. The suffering that goes along with trying to get funding for inshore 
coastal work is incredible. For some of us, it's hardly worth the effort in terms of ease of 
funding and acquiring the funds. It's an extremely complex environment that requires a 
multi-disciplinary approach. It requires generally large funding bases to do meaningful 
studies that address the kinds of questions being asked here. I find that financial support 
is really tough to come by with the current status of funding to the agencies. 

P. Boehm: Your question really has to be directed to the funding agencies not 
to the universities. I think this is a system that everybody—including most Federal 
agencies—has assumed is somebody else's problem or it's getting a very limited approach 
like in the 301(h). There's been a lot of 301(h) activity, but research activity extends to 
the zone of initial dilution. Many chemists have linked one 301(h) study with another one 
several miles away. 


106 


Question: In the Chesapeake Bay area, a lot of environmental legislation goes 
all the way back to the environmental impact statements. It has been a matter of people 
putting pressure on legislatures. Of course, the Federal legislature is close by and 
convenient, but there has been a great sense of awareness of the environmental quality 
and also the economic value. Of course, there is a lot more inland area, inland water too. 
Do you think that is an area that could be developed in Massachusetts, an area of interest, 
and possible societal pressure? 

R. Delanay: I think it will be, and it has to be. Obviously, from what we've 
heard today, there is a tremendous need for more research. Both the early comments are 
true, however. Historically, the research money was not being directed at that area from 
the state or the Federal government, for that matter, or from other sources. And until 
the University of Massachusetts program focused its attention physically, put itself on the 
Harbor front and focused attention on the Harbor, we really didn't have a forum or a place 
to direct that. But I think more will follow; the ball is rolling now. 

K. Castagna: I'd like to add something to that. It's my perception that there's 
a constituency to clean up Boston Harbor. I don't doubt that. There's been a tremendous 
amount of public and newspaper interest on the plight of Boston Harbor and the plight of 
the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) to operate and maintain adequate sewage 
treatment facilities for the 43 communities who are serviced by that facility. I don't 
think we mentioned that, but 43 cities and towns are serviced by the MDC. 

Many engineering studies have focused on the Metropolitan District 
Commission sewage system. There's some misconception in the public's mind between 
engineering studies and overall environmental research. This type of forum is very 
interesting to bring out the fact that there are a lot of unanswered environmental 
questions for which we need answers. In the Boston area, the public might believe that 
when you study Boston Harbor for 15 years or more without much action, why spend more 
money in research when we want action? 

Many unanswered questions need research. There's also a correlation between 
those unanswered questions and very wise management decisions that are coming up. I 
think we need to bring forth the message more clearly that there are a lot of unanswered 
questions from an overall environmental point of view. 

M. Barber: Along the same lines, how does the public health question affect 
recreation and citizen involvement? Is there any swimming in Boston Harbor at all? Are 
the beaches in Massachusetts Bay open or closed? What is the situation there and how can 
it be used to advantage? 

R. Delaney: There is swimming. However, when very heavy rain falls in the 
summer and these combined sewer overflows overflow and discharge waste into the 
adjacent water, the beaches are closed at that time. This is a serious concern. In fact, 
we've set as priorities the rehabilitation of those particular CSOs adjacent to the 
swimming beaches; this is one of our criteria. 


107 


But for the most part, the swimming outside of Boston Harbor extends, by 
some definitions, from Winthrop through ten major towns, and small cities such as 
Chelsea, Revere, Quincy, and along the Massachusetts coastline. In addition to the city, 
at least eight, and perhaps ten, towns have frontage oft the larger Boston Harbor and 
Massachusetts 3ay. But for the most part, the pollution, problems with swimming beaches 
are really just in the immediate areas close to the CSOs. 

Question: I have a couple of questions. From a national perspective and in 
order to be able to set priorities, there's only so much money in the kitty, so how would 
you compare Boston Harbor to other estuaries along the east coast or the northeast coast? 
I won't say nationally, but how does Boston Harbor compare? If you don't know the answer 
to that question, what criteria must we use to be able to prioritize where the money has 
to go so we can correct or mitigate, in one way or another, what is happening in some of 
these estuaries? Is Boston Harbor worse off, for example, than Raritan Bay? Is Boston 
Harbor worse off than Searsport, Maine, or the Gulf of Maine, or Chesapeake Bay? Maybe 
it's not a fair question to ask. 

G. Wallace: Well, one of the things we have to consider is probably the largest 
single discharge of sewage occurs within the estuary itself, which is generally not the case 
in any other estuaries along the east coast or at least in terms of the volume of water 
being impacted. Another criteria I'd use is the economic value. Are the fisheries 
resources lost and are the recreational and aesthetic values affecting real estate values? 
How do we put a number on that? 

Question: Well, I guess what I'm asking is the same question that was asked at 
first. What criteria and data gaps do we have, in a sense? But I've heard today, for 
example, we use Capitella, we use chemical contaminant loads, we use neoplasias, we use 
disease symptoms or even disease effects, perhaps even parasitic loads. This is an expert 
panel whose charge, I would assume, is to try to address questions like this not necessarily 
just for Boston Harbor, but thinking in a holistic way, just where are we supposed to be 
going if indeed pollution is affecting our health or resources. 

L. Bridges: I don't know if I can answer your question, but in Massachusetts 
when the original Federal Water Pollution Control Act was passed, a great deal of 
emphasis was on building sewage treatment plants throughout the state. The principal 
activity centered on freshwater streams, lakes, and ponds. Basically, I think the ponds 
and streams in Massachusetts have been fairly well cleaned up, and the condition is 
certainly much improved over what it was in the early 1960s. But in the coastal areas of 
the large industrial cities like Boston, Salem, South Essex, and the New Bedford area, this 
jsn't the case. As far as I'm concerned, decision-makers put their heads in the sand 
because they figured, well, all we have to do is dump sewage out in the ocean, and the 
ocean will assimilate this waste. 

The technology that's been applied inland to clean up the inland waters really 
has not resulted in any improvement along the coast. Moreover, what we've experienced 


108 



in Massachusetts as an industrial state is extreme development along the coast. For 
example, on Cape Cod, where people spend their summers because it's a beautiful place to 
be, within the last year or two, the number of acres of shellfish flats closed because of 
bacterial contamination is increasing from about 2,000 to close to about 5,000. The 
amount of housing being built on Cape Cod, and a whole host of problems brought on by 
increased use of Cape Cod, is one of the things that's happening in Massachusetts. And 
I'm not sure that it's happening elsewhere in the country or on the east coast. 

G. Gallagher: I would like to comment on how we set priorities. We don't 
know enough about Boston Harbor to really have a ranking of how it compares in terms of 
pollution levels to Elliot Bay and Puget Sound. One way we might consider ranking 
funding is trying to get to just a basic rudimentary understanding of the various systems. 

Puget Sound is fairly well understood, but could use a lot more research. For 
example, in the main basin of Elliot Bay, we know essentially what controls the 
phytoplankton bloom. It was modeled pretty well in the winters of the 1960s. 

Narragansett Bay had a good base of funding through NOAA-Sea Grant, so 
they were able to put together a fairly good model of the tides there. Jim Kramer and 
Scott Nixon put together a very nice simulation model to explain the blooms in 
Narragansett Bay. They have good data on the copepod populations so they know the 
relative effect of the zooplankton population. They had a good data base to work with 
before they even began considering pollution levels and how they affect the biological 
community. 


We don't have that in Boston Harbor. However, we have heavily polluted 
sediments, we have people fishing for winter flounder that tend to congregate around the 
plume outfalls. We have a heavily polluted system, but we don't have a good 
understanding at all of this system. We need funding from somewhere. I think a Federal 
source would be nice. Boston Harbor is not unique. Fred Nichols started working in San 
Francisco Bay in the 1970s at a point similar to where we are now with Boston Harbor. A 
good review of what's known about the biological communities in San Francisco Bay up 
until the early 1970s, such as the knowledge about San Francisco Bay until the mid-1970s 
was as woeful as it is about Boston Harbor right now. They have made a fairly heavy 
effort in the last 10 years in San Francisco Bay and have a pretty good understanding of 
the situation. We don't have that in Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay. So rather than try 
to rank it, I think maybe getting a basic knowledge of the processes would help an awful 
lot. And that, unfortunately, takes some pretty hefty funding. 

P. Boehm: Well, I'm going to be bolder. I admit that we have to know more 
about the processes to make the management decisions. We have discussed processes, 
fluxes, and circulation. In terms of ranking criteria if we're talking about fish disease and 
pollutant concentrations, granted, we don't have as large a data base as other estuaries. I 
would rank the Boston Harbor area as bad or probably much worse than most estuaries 
outside of the superfund, New Bedford Harbor, maybe Commencement Bay area. 
Although Commencement Bay has some comparable levels. 


109 


So, granted, we don't know much about the implications of these pollutant 
levels, but Dr. Murchelano has told us, that he's never seen such a high level of incidence. 
I think we have a feeling that we're dealing with a system that's pretty badly degraded- 
much more degraded than some of the estuaries, certainly, being studied by EPA in the 
estuaries program. 

A. Rosenfeld: You said neoplasia is probably one of the most dramatic criteria 
or clues, at least, that the place is dramatically contaminated. This should not be the 
only criteria. Other criteria may be equally significant or as important as neoplasia. The 
criteria depend upon biases as to what is the most important adverse effect. 

Right now, I think Boston Harbor is only using neoplasia, liver carcinomas 
more specifically, in winter flounder as a major criteria for saying it is badly degraded. 
At least you are, Paul, in addition to some of the other criteria, such as certain pollution 
levels. But what are these pollution levels in comparison with Raritan Bay, for example? 

R. Murchelano: Whether we establish criteria in terms of how much attention 
an estuary, body of water, or land should receive in a society, a democratic society by 
fiat, by presidential decree, by legislative action, by referendum, by whatever we want— 
it's bound to vary. Somebody has to arbitrarily designate for the benefit of society 
overall, what things are most important. That's incredibly difficult. I understand that. 
That's basically your question. 

But let's go back even further than that. Why study the phenomena to death? 
By virtue of the fact that we know polluted bodies are polluted. If they're polluted by 
anthropogenic activity, then we should do pollution abatement and pass legislation that 
affects pollution abatement and quit the studies. 

I don't think anyone would disagree that disease in a room, in a body of water 
or in a piece of land that is constricted, and thus where animals are contagiously close, is 
going to be one consequence of pollution. So if that is a given and it is not illogical, then 
we should make the effort for pollution mitigation and legislation that stops the pollution. 

K. Castagna: I'd like to mention something. From strictly a hardware point of 
view, the Metropolitan District Commission wastewater system is extremely antiquated. 
They operate one plant that is over 30 years old and under capacity. We do not have 
enough capacity in that plant for the type of flow that reaches that plant. That's the 
south system, Nut Island Wastewater Treatment Plant. The other plant was constructed 
in 1968 and has had chronic functioning and operations problems due to pumps installed 
there. As far as the level of treatment, it's still at a primary level and, as we know, 
nation wide, other than the waivers that have been granted, secondary treatment is the 
law of the land. 

Cheryl discussed the history of the waiver process. Boston is one of the few 
municipalities left in the country that discharges raw sludge through an outfall pipe. So 


110 


that has to stop. That needs to cease. The CSOs need to be abated. I'm trying to say 
that from a hardware point of view, it's an antiquated system that we know enough about, 
in comparison to other major metropolitan cities, to know the hardware needs to be 
changed. So there's a duality here. I feel that the research needs to monitor 
improvements of the different types of hardware that we install over the years. But I 
don't think we need more research to begin to implement that. 

From a hardware point of view, it's in a very sad state. I would rank it very 
badly compared to other metropolitan areas nation wide. Our regional administrator with 
EPA has said that quite often. From the EPA's regional point of view, we want pollution 
control equipment, funding it along with the different processes: the environmental 

review process, the finishing of the facilities plans, the designs of the new treatment 
plants, the designs of sludge management, disposal techniques that are agreed upon, and 
more. There's a lot to be done. And we don't need to rank it any further to begin some of 
that action. 

C. Breen: I have to add something to what Kathy is saying about the practical 
hardware standpoint. When we talk about new facilities for the Metropolitan District 
Commission, we're talking about more than just end-of-the-pipe type equipment such as 
treatment plants or combined sewer overflow treatment facilities. Basically, the system 
is in such a state of antiquation that a number of major pumping stations and interceptors 
also need repair or replacement. And right now, they're causing not only pollution in the 
Harbor, but pollution in the local freshwater bodies along their routes because, as Kathy 
mentioned, 43 communities extend west of the Harbor. Thus we need the hardware not 
only to improve or lessen pollutant loading into the Harbor, but to keep the sewage out of 
people's basements and local streams. 

G. Wallace: I'd just like to expand on that. I can't let that comment pass 
unscathed because I think it's a little bit more complex than just pollution abatement. 
Pollution abatement is fine if you're working as a marine scientist and you're concerned 
about the health of the marine environment. What about the marine ecosystem? They 
have to go hand-in-hand. I'm appalled, for example, at the 301(h) progress, which does not 
consider the ramifications of the increased toxicity of the sludge, for example, because 
the wastes are going to be generated. How they're handled and where they're transported 
or where they end up may be slightly different in each case, but it certainly should go into 
the overall decision process. 

I think—and this viewpoint has been made more and more often by people such 
as Ed Goldberg and Charlie Osterberg recently at the APU meeting in Baltimore—we need 
some reasonable management plan for judging where the waste is going to go. The marine 
environment has to be considered as a possible repository of that waste. It obviously has 
to be done with some rationale so that we don't reach concentrations that presumably 
induce toxic fish disease and other sublethal effects that we can't even begin to address 
because we don't have the expertise to do so. 


Ill 


There has to be a balance—a rational management plan and some 
accommodation for disposing wastes in adjacent coastal marine regions. Therefore, we 
need the information. We can't stay in this condition of ignorance about what is going on 
geochemically, biogeochemically, and biologically in the nearshore processes. 

The waters are going to continue to receive the wastes; there's no doubt about 
that. Even if we go to secondary treatment, some wastes will go into that system. We 
need to know how the wastes are transported, where they are going to end up, and what 
the likely biological effects might be. 

The only way we're going to get those answers is by tackling more complex 
problems associated with the inshore areas as opposed to blue-water areas. The blue- 
water system is a much simpler, nicer system. I've done both. It's very nice to go out into 
the middle of the Sargasso Sea and look at vertical profiles. The variables are not nearly 
as complex. When I move inshore and try to look at the nearshore fluxes, I've got a real 
mess on my hands. It's much more difficult, and the variables that we have to consider 
are much greater in number. 

Question: Somebody has to decide at what point we have enough information 
to make an investment. What that means is that somebody has to decide what abatement 
is, because some people may be thinking that by investing money, they are going to be 
obtaining abatement, whereas other people may be saying that you're not going to get any 
abatement at all. And somewhere along the line, somebody has to make the decision 
about when to make the investment. 

There hasn't been any absence of willingness on the part of Congress to spend 
money on these problems. But there has been more spending of money on problems and 
not solving them. It seems to me that there has got to be a basic agreement reached 
between the scientists who are willing to say, "Yes, the information is good enough to 
spend a certain amount of money," and the politicians who are willing to say, "We really 
shouldn't just go out and dump hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into secondary 
treatment plants without knowing how they are going to be affected." 

The only thing that would be worse than not spending that money would be 
spending it and not having any improvements for the public to see. And I have a very 
definite feeling that what is going on in Boston is that that meeting of the minds is a long 
way from having happened. What I hear many people saying that we need more 
information about circulation and about sources. 

We have other people on the panel saying that by July 10th, we're going to 
make a decision where we will put a multi-hundred million dollar secondary treatment 
plant that's going to have an outfall located, as best as I can tell, about where the existing 
outfall is. 


112 


Somewhere in between there is room for resolving some issues. I began to 
hear a little bit about this with recent comments such as, "yes, we have to meet some of 
the interim problems along the way." But it seems to me that there still is considerable 
emphasis on heavy hardware coming from a lot of people who see the need to solve the 
problem in the public eye by building a plant on site. Whereas, in fact, a lot of the 
improvements we may be seeing from the scientist's point of view are going to come 
from these interim solutions that we are looking at now; solutions that may, in fact, be 
erroneous. But we don't know yet. So I get the idea that you folks haven't really come 
together yet from the information side to the money-spent side. 

L. Bridges: Along that line, one thing that hasn't really been brought out today 
is that when the waiver was being considered, the state licensing agency, DEQE, actually 
supported the granting of a waiver at one point. And I don't want to speak for them, but 
my impression is that one of the reasons they did was that they felt that the technology 
involved in secondary treatment would not cure the problems caused by the huge amount 
of waste in the Boston Harbor. Namely, there were no effective pretreatment programs 
for complex organic compounds. And it is my understanding that that was one of the 
considerations. Rich, you correct me if I'm wrong. That is one of the reasons why they 
were in support of the waiver application. Is that correct? 

R. Delaney: Basically, I think you described the situation pretty accurately. 
For a number of years, we have been in that state of when do we make the decision? 
When's "D" Day? We've been having this ongoing debate about primary or secondary 
treatment and what is the best dollar value for us to make. Meanwhile, frankly, the 
political pressures and the frustrations and the deterioration of the Harbor continues to 
build to a point where a decision had to be made. There is still ongoing debate about 
primary versus secondary, but the decision has been made. And we are going to go 
forward with that. 

That decision is only one step or one part of the overall solution, the overall 
strategy. We need to deal with the other components—pretreatment, combined sewer 
overflows, sludge, and the treatment plant. From a hardware perspective, there are at 
least four parts to that, and we've described it as number four in terms of primary and 
secondary. But now we've made a decision, we've still got to complement it by addressing 
the other three. That's not always easy because a large amount of dollars that are needed 
to go forward. 

K. Castagna: I'd like also to say that, from EPA's point of view, we never saw 
the only solution to the Boston Harbor pollution problem as the building of the new 
wastewater treatment facility. We see it, as Rich said and as the Commonwealth sees it, 
as a multi-faceted pollution problem that needs many remedies before we'll see 
improvements, one of which, for the nearshore areas, for the beaches, has to be the 
combined sewer overflows into the Harbor and sewage sludge in the Mid- to Outer Harbor. 


113 


I think what's gone wrong with the wastewater treatment end of it is that it is 
the most expensive part of the "hardware" solution. I consider the hardware solution the 
construction of CSO facilities and the construction of adequate sludge management 
facilities; multiple or sludge management can be used. Ocean discharge, ocean disposal 
will be one of the options evaluated for the sewage sludge. Sludge management will be 
examined in light of many alternatives. There will be a new environmental impact 
statement in the summer of 1985 on the issue of sludge disposal for this system. 

But from the public point of view, a tremendous amount of controversy has 
centered on where the plant will go. One reason the controversy is so intense is that the 
existing plants are extremely bad neighbors because, as I said before, of their antiquated 
condition. They generate odors, noise, and traffic. I would describe it as a horror show 
to live near some of those plants. The focus in the media has been on the plants because 
of this controversy and the cost, but from our regional perspective, we feel a new plant is 
the only solution. We feel it's one of many steps needed in Boston Harbor. 

C Breen: I hate to do this, but I just have to comment on something that Rich 
Delaney said about the decision being made on the waiver. It is true that EPA issued that 
tentative denial of the waiver in April and that the MDC did not respond within the 45 
days that they had to contest that decision. But, as I mentioned in my talk this morning, 
the next step in the whole process is for the EPA to issue a draft discharge permit. 

When that draft permit is issued and goes out for public comment, the MDC, 
the new Water Resources Authority, or some other party will have an opportunity to 
contest the decision or to begin negotiations on the permit's actual final effluent 
limitations. Rich is correct in saying that the Commonwealth stands behind and supports 
EPA's decision for denial, but the Commonwealth's position doesn't speak for the new 
Water Resources Authority. 

G. Gallagher: If I might make one comment, I think you set up a false 
opposition. You said the scientists are saying, "we need more study," and the policy 
people are saying, "Well, okay, go to secondary sewage treatment," and the decision will 
be made July 10th about the site. I don't think they're incompatible. The scientists are 
saying we need more study, and I think that was a lot of the reason that I, for one, felt 
that the EPA had very little choice in turning down Boston's application for a section 
301(h) waiver. The knowledge of physical oceanography 7 miles out in the Harbor, which 
is the old diffuser site, is so inadequate we really don't know where the sewage plume 
would go. Drogues released at one time a year with one wind-forcing condition would be 
washed to the northwest; drogues released at another time of the year would be washed to 
the southwest. We really didn't know what the physical oceanography is. 

And when we are that uncertain about the physical oceanography of a site out 
in Massachusetts Bay, we have to give the environment the benefit of the doubt. In 
reviewing the work, I don't think the waiver could have been granted to the MDC. 


114 


Our knowledge is so rudimentary about the environment where the proposed 
diffuser was to be built that if Boston was allowed to stay with primary sewage 
treatment, the distribution of the rocky areas in a transect going 7 miles out is virtually 
unknown, although some preliminary side scan sonar work was done in the early 1970s by 
Edgerton's group at MIT. That's about the state of our knowledge in mapping where there 
are sediment patches and rocky patches. 

Without a good side scan sonar or good depth sounding device, we wouldn't 
know when we put down a box corer whether we would be landing in soft sediment or in 
rock. Our state of knowledge is that poor. When our state of knowledge is that poor, I 
don't think the scientists are going to be saying, "Build the outfall out there." You know, 
build it out there and we'll decide after we've done more studies whether we need to go to 
secondary. 


Question: Whether you go to secondary treatment or not, there has to be a 
discharge of some things some place. You need to decide discharge location whether you 
do physical oceanographic work or not. How much more physical oceanographic 
information would you need to make a decision about where you would want the 
discharge? It is going to have to be discharged. 

G. Wallace: We've been discussing that because we've been involved in the 
South Essex sewage district and their potential attempts to reapply after their permit 
denial. To address the scientific concerns, we put together a package that would address 
EPA's concerns, which now would include farfield and nearfield effects. To do that, we 
have to understand the circulation of Massachusetts Bay. This would have to be done on a 
basis of where we have at least enough data to examine the principal influence of the 
major forcing factors. That would require seasonal deployment of current meters. For 
example, in the South Atlantic Bight, extensive information has been gathered for the 
Department of Energy program over a number of years. 

A problem with all these waivers is that if the comprehensive studies were 
done initially to develop the lacking rudimentary, fundamental knowledge, we would have 
had a pretty good idea right at the start of what could and could not be tolerated. 
Unfortunately, that information doesn't exist. Just as a ballpark figure, it would cost 3 
million dollars. Well, that’s a lot of money. 

But the cost of just a small South Essex sewage district in going from 
secondary down to primary or up to secondary is 20 million dollars. So it's a small 
investment, in terms of taxpayers' money, to gain that information. But it has to be done 
in the correct fashion. 

Question: What is there about the physical oceanography? Suppose you had all 
this physical oceanographic information and you knew precisely where all the discharge 
was going to go all the time. With that information, how would you decide whether or not 
you would need secondary treatment? 


115 


G. Wallace: Well, that's not the only information. The other information we 
need would be the ambient biological and chemical condition. We have to consider a 
series of criteria. 

Question: Yes. That's the problem. W£ would like to have all of this 
information: physical, chemical, and biological. But we haven't decided precisely what it 
is that we want to change from a management point of view. We haven't decided what it 
is we want to avoid. 

G. Wallace: I think they're all equal. We have to get rid of the waste. And 
the greatest lack that I see in this whole program is the lack of attention paid to the 
balancing of the terrestrial versus the marine disposable wastes. 

Question: You're dealing with the unknowns on land as well. 

G. Wallace: Exactly. But we know we have severe groundwater problems. I 
get calls everyday at the university. "Should I buy this house, it's near hazardous landfills, 
it's number fourteen in the Superfund sites." "Gee, sir, I don't know." But the point is, we 
know contaminants are present, and it's happening more and more frequently. And there's 
going to be more and more pressure to avoid going to landfills, for example. 

Question: We know that. What do you want to know about the circulation in 
Boston Harbor and in Massachusetts Bay that is going to make a difference? 

G. Wallace: We need to know the transport and dilution of the toxicants that 
are going to be diffused. 

Question: That's a multiple answer. 

G. Wallace: Right. 

Question: I think you ought to know the frequency with which you're going to 
contaminate beaches, and then you want to know the flushing capacity. 

G. Wallace: Oh, we want to make sure we don't do those things. 

Question: Well, those are the end points. Without having a well-defined end 
point, a definition of what you want to avoid, all you're going to do is generate a lot of 
academic information about circulation in Massachusetts Bay that sometime later, 
hopefully, somebody can use. 

G. Wallace: No. I presumed when you asked the question, you knew the 
answer. So, of course, those are the concerns~to know exactly what the fate of the 
transport of the pollutants are, what environments are going to be affected, and what 
biological resources will be impacted. And we can't know this unless we have a pretty 
good idea where they're going to be transported, what form they're going to be in, and 
what communities are likely to be affected. 


116 


Question: That’s all true, but you haven’t decided what you want to avoid. 

G. Gallagher: A perfect example of where the physical oceanography has been 
a key in understanding the effects of a pollutant would be in the monitoring of mining and 
oil drilling on Georges Bank. The physical oceanography was the key to designing the 
sampling program—to look at whether drilling muds and fluids had an adverse effect on 
the marine environment. This physical oceanography was mainly done by Brad Buttman of 
the U.S. Geological Survey in Woods Hole, MA. 

There is an area of deposition where most of the fine materials from Georges 
Bank are transported. Monitoring stations were not only set up around the drilling rig, but 
also in the deposition area. We're missing all of that information in Boston Harbor. In 
terms of assessing whether there is environmental damage, we really need to know where 
the fine materials from one area are transported. 

It's not just academic information that’s sitting there. It's key to managing an 
area's resource. When the Canadians begin drilling on Georges Bank, as they might, the 
physical and geological oceanographic information and sediment transport is going to be a 
key element to deciding whether there's been an adverse impact due to renewed drilling 
on Georges Bank. It's not just of academic interest; it's key to management. 

B. Brown: I agree with Gene. We need to understand dispersional and 
depositional processes in Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. We must learn where 
contaminants are going. For example, are they going to fine-grained sedimentary areas 
such as Stellwagen Basin, to our living resources, offshore out of the system, or 
somewhere else. We also need to learn more about chemical conversions of contaminants 
over time in estuaries and marine systems. These types of information are key to 
management decisions in Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. We need them to decide 
issues such as outfalls siting, siting of dredge spoil areas, and methods for placing 
subharbor tunnels. 

Question: I've heard Dr. Wallace comment several times on the need to assess 
in advance what's going to happen to the waste. I wouldn't want us to be left with the 
impression that as a general rule there's no one thinking about that. Criteria are being 
made on how to develop technical recommendations used in a multi-media assessment. 

G. Wallace: I'm glad to hear it, but in practice right now it's not being done. 
The sludge management problem is just totally ignored. Michael Deland, the Region I 
EPA Administrator, said, "Under law, that's what I'm required to do: only consider water 
quality considerations, not balance terrestrial." 

In the EIS for treatment plant siting that recently came out, the sludge 
disposal factor was not figured into the siting problem, for logic that escapes me, too 
complex or whatever; but it was not one of the factors they considered in the initial EIS 
statement. Perhaps it is now. I don't know its status now. 


117 


Question: I’m just reporting that it is not an unknown problem. 
G. Wallace: I'm glad to hear that. 


C. Breen: Gordon, if I understand your statement about the 301(h) waiver 
process, the reason, in your words, they were ignoring the impacts of the sludge discharge 
is that the sludge discharge into Boston Harbor is something that is not supposed to 
happen, and plans are underway to halt it. A separate EIS on sludge disposal options will 
be prepared following completion of the EIS on treatment plant siting. 

G. Wallace: No. In judging between primary and secondary, you always end up 
with the higher toxic levels in the secondary treated sludge. That poses a problem with 
disposal. And the consequences of that activity versus primary sludge disposal and the 
options we have, therefore, have to be balanced. And that's what was not done. 

C. Breen: Okay. Thank you for clarifying that because I thought you were 
talking about the discharge of sludge into Boston Harbor. 

G. Wallace: No. 

K. Castagna: I'd like to say that the waiver regulations are written very 
specifically as to what shall be evaluated when a municipal applicant applies to the EPA 
to allow for a lower level of treatment other than secondary. Those regulations don't 
allow for economic analyses, such as how much more secondary would cost than primary. 
Those regulations also don't allow for the evaluation of what we do then with the residual 
waste product, meaning sewage sludge. So under regulations in evaluating that waiver 
application, EPA does not have that variability or viability to go into, say, a cost-benefit 
analysis and weigh those other conditions. 

G. Wallace: I know. 

J. Thomas: Maybe I could just shift gears here just a little bit. We heard 
earlier—I think it was from Paul Boehm, and if not Paul, excuse me—that you're not sure 
that a trend toward whether or not the system was getting worse or better because the 
data base was too short in temporal time. We also heard people talk about problems with 
spatial variation, that they had only sampled in some of the pockets and thus weren't sure 
whether their samples were truly representative or not. 

The question I'm really asking is from this panel—and maybe we can hear from 
several of you—do you feel that the habitat of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay, the 
trend, is getting worse, getting better, or don't you know? Do you feel the State of 
Massachusetts and the Federal Government are getting on top of the problem? Or do you 
feel that the question is pretty much up in the air? And maybe if you want to include the 
living marine resources in there as well, we'd be interested to hear some kind of wrap-up 
statements on that. 


118 


P. Boehm: The only trend data that I've seen was presented by Gordon 
Wallace. That's sort of a long-term trend. It's not really addressing a time frame that we 
want to look at in years, say one, two, three, or five years. 

It's even hard answering the magnitude questions; there's just so little data. 
The trend question has to be answered by well-designed, statistically valid studies. And as 
somebody mentioned before, most of the area's information has come from engineering- 
related studies, end-of-pipe studies, and studies that really haven't addressed longer-term 
monitoring in a spatial sense. So we can't really answer that question on the time frame 
we're looking at. Things are getting worse when we look at—I don't know what the 
duration of Gordon's was—the data at the bottom of your core? 

G. Wallace: Supposedly about 1900. 

P. Boehm: Between 1900 and now things have gotten worse. That's the type 
of resolution I would really like to know. 

J. Thomas: Is the trend still going downhill or is it leveling off? In discussing 
Delaware Bay, Jon Sharp came down here several months ago and stated that the lower 
part of the Delaware River and the upper part of Delaware Bay were actually improving. 
The agencies in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware had gotten together and were 
starting to, in fact, get on top of the question and to come out on the upper side, to 
bottom out. So some estuaries around the country have bottomed out and are coming up. 

I gather in this case your feeling is that since 1900 it's gotten worse, but 
maybe now you're either unsure or you don't know if it's bottomed out. Is that a fair 
statement? 


P. Boehm: We have absolutely no idea. Gordon's data on the effluent, if 
you're talking about concentrations of metals, is good temporal data, and some of those 
metals are up and down. If you're talking about sources, maybe Gordon can comment on 
this; some appear to be getting better or worse. But in terms of the health of the 
ecosystem, I don't think we have a clue. 

G. Wallace: I don't see any evidence in the effluent data. Some statements 
have been made, and perhaps with zinc you could argue that the concentrations have been 
going down. But even more recent data from 1984, which I've seen a few months of, 
shows no evidence of a trend in the effluent data versus time, and I've talked to our local 
statisticians about this. And I even have analytical questions about the quality of that 
data. 


So I certainly don't see any reason why things should be getting better based on 
the limited evidence we have and on the activity in the Boston area. I would doubt that 
we could see any improvement, as I said, in terms of metal loading in another five or ten 
years depending on when those plants go on line. 


119 


J. Thomas: How about if I pick on Bob Murchelano in terms of fish disease? If 
fish disease has been around a considerable time in Boston Harbor as badly as you say~I'm 
not saying that it's been around a long time, but if it is as bad as you say and that 
condition has been there for some time-then we would/either assume that the disease has 
not had much effect on the population or that the disease is new. Any comment on that? 

R. Murchelano: Well, the latter statement is really a fundamental one as to 
whether it's had an effect on the population. To really address that and assess that would 
be incredibly difficult. 

In addressing it from the perspective of whether the situation is status quo, 
has become worse, or will improve on the basis of limited information of this particular 
disease, there is no way to determine its effect on pollution. This is a very, very small 
assessor of a phenomena at one point in time, and there's no way of estimating, at least, 
what its effect is and what its rate of change has been. Those are very, very complex 
questions. 


Whether there should be research to determine that, whether we should 
undertake research to determine whether those questions are answerable, is very vague in 
my mind. If we reference the extent or prevalence of analogous diseases, or the same 
disease in a population from an area which has not been ecologically affected to any large 
degree, such as Georges Bank, and find the spontaneous rate of this disease is non-existent 
there, then we have to implicate some article as a source other than genetic. And I bring 
that out, right to the fore, that a genetic difference in susceptibility from a local genetic 
stock might be something that pertains. But if we can discount the fact or accommodate 
to the fact that a reference population does not have any spontaneous occurrence of the 
disease, then the disease most probably is caused, by virtue of where it occurs—in what 
tissue, its manifestation, its analogy to homeotherms—by an outside source. 

So on that basis alone, if we stop some of the introductions—whether they be 
via primary, secondary, sewage outfalls, industrial plants, or whatever we want, 
radioactivity from laboratories, all of these possibilities—and start to control them, then 
we make a step toward reducing the phenomenon which we have studied or identified. 
Very pragmatic. 

J. Thomas: Could I shift to either Leigh or Richard? How about closure of 
shellfish beds? Are you closing more and more, and is the area expanding year-by-year? 
Or is the area getting smaller, staying the same, or shifting from one area to another? Is 
it increasing or decreasing? 

L. Bridges: On a state wide basis we are closing more and more shellfish areas 
every year, principally because of the reason I mentioned before. Everybody wants to live 
on the coast. We have more waste being dumped directly into the open waters even from 
individual septic systems. We've closed another 2 or 3,000 acres of shellfish areas on the 
Cape. 


120 


In Boston Harbor, the amount of closed areas fluctuates, but it remains around 
2,800 acres which remain open. Now, Cheryl stated that when the MDC is bypassing 
sewage everything shuts down, so we have zero acres open in Boston Harbor. And that 
condition might last for as many as two or three weeks, and then the areas are reopened 
when the bacterial counts go down and the shellfish are harvested again. 

I think that Boston Harbor, as far as the shellfishing and the productivity of 
the shellfish are concerned, probably has some bearing on the pollution load because 
Boston Harbor is one of the most productive standing crop shellfish areas we have in the 
state. 


I don't have any information on whether this problem is getting worse. There 
is no trend information, obviously, but just from the development along our coast, I'd have 
to believe~and it's strictly no more than a personal opinion based on no scientific data-- 
that the problem is in a lull and may be getting worse. Maybe the Water Resources 
Authority can begin to turn this around. 

But if we go back to what happened in New Bedford Harbor in 1977, the 
discharge of PCBs had stopped. What we've seen since then is a general degradation of 
the level of PCBs in the animals within the Harbor. But the level has come down, and it 
has stabilized, so we're still at a level whereby PCBs are still showing up over the limits 
of the Federal standards. The point is that since the PCBs have been shut off in New 
Bedford Harbor, there has been some degradation of the amounts showing up in the 
animals. 


R. Murchelano: I'd like to make another comment which has to do with a 
question that you very acutely identified. And that was, is this particular phenomenon 
addressing the one which I know best: the one involving the hepatic lesions? If this 
phenomenon has existed for a long time, why aren't the populations of animals depressed 
in that Harbor if the same thing is happening to fish that have cancer as happens to 
mammals that have cancer? That's a very fundamental question, and obviously there is no 
way I can address that because there is no body of information. I'll say that for the first 
time. 


But that's really not the only important thing. Some individuals here were at 
that hearing with me held at the House Committee on Merchant Marine Fisheries. 
Congressman Breaux from Louisiana said it, and I think he said it best of all the 
individuals that I've heard address this topic of Environmental Degradation and Biological 
Effect, and that is, "The fish are telling you something, but you're not listening too well." 

And if these fish have a phenomenon which is called cancer, we don't know 
what it does to them because we haven't worked with fish to the extent that we have 
worked with mammals with this particular phenomenon. But it should be obvious that 
whatever is happening to fish, could possibly happen to you as well. So the societal 
consequences of a phenomena of this nature are more than what I address from a resource 


121 


agency, concerned with the survival of the fish, legitimately, as well as populations of 
fish, legitimately, and the use of fish, legitimately. But there's another implication—what 
happens to other animal species besides fish? 

/ 

Questions: Well, in terms of the shellfish industry, if it is correct that a large 
number or percent of lobsters are gathered from the Harbor's and that the Harbor's mean 
PCB level is greater than allowed by standards, why haven't they closed their lobster 
industry? 

L. Bridges: The mean PCB level—the lobster industry in New Bedford Harbor 
has been closed since 1979. 

Question: How about Boston Harbor? 

L. Bridges: When I was talking about PCB levels in lobsters just a few minutes 
ago, all of my comments referred to New Bedford Harbor, not Boston Harbor. We have no 
data on Boston Harbor on PCB levels. We're attempting to get some now. 

Question: Doesn't the Department of Health concern itself with these things? 

L. Bridges: The Massachusetts Department of Public Health closed New 
Bedford Harbor to all kinds of fishing, an emergency closing. 

G. Wallace: I think you're asking about Boston Harbor, concerns about Boston 

Harbor. 


Question: Yes. 

G. Wallace: Yes. There are concerns, and analyses of PCBs are going to be 
done in the immediate future. But it's been a long time coming. 

B. Brown: I think that we should probably conclude now. I want to underscore 
how little we know in the area. When I started working on this workshop today, I thought I 
was going to have a lot of conflicts. I thought I might have ten or fifteen who would be 
speaking and, for example, six or seven who know about the sewage management 
concerns, and many who know about biology and fisheries in Boston Harbor and 
Massachusetts Bay. 

It turns out that we do not have the data like that available for Narragansett 
Bay, Long Island Sound, the Chesapeake Bay, or Delaware Bay. We don't have the volume 
of knowledge that they have and the literature that has been generated. Most of the 
available literature for Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay is in the grey literature, not 
in referred journals. 


122 


Clear definition of critical management questions remains to be elucidated. 
Obviously, the Harbor and its sources of contaminants require attention. A more finely 
focused understanding of transport, dispersion, and deposition processes is lacking. 
Physical oceanographic data are lacking. Links between Boston Harbor and Massachusetts 
Bay must be established. Fisheries are stressed both in terms of their health and harvest. 
The patchiness of the benthic community and the character of the plankton community 
remain poorly defined. A well-defined, prioritized, basinwide management approach is 
badly needed. 

The Boston-area community has become increasingly concerned with problems 
in the coastal waters. Progress is being made toward improving municipal wastewater 
treatment systems around Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay. Continued cooperative 
efforts among Federal and state agencies, private institutions for research and education, 
and the public is the only way the Boston Harbor/Massachusetts Bay ecosystem can be 
managed effectively. 

1 want to thank all of the speakers today for the efforts they have put into 
preparing for this workshop. Jim Thomas wants to make some final comments. 

J. Thomas: Thank you, Betsy. On behalf of NOAA and the U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency, we want to thank you, Betsy, and you, Paul, for organizing such a fine 
day. And we particularly want to thank the speakers who came down here to Washington 
from the Boston Metropolitan area and shared with us their expertise and knowledge. And 
last, but not least certainly, we want to thank those of you who managed to survive and 
hang on all afternoon. Thank you very much, all of you, for coming. 


123 












/ 





































PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR BOSTON HARBOR AND MASSACHUSETTS BAY 


by 

Dr. Eugene Gallagher 
Environmental Services Program 
University of Massachusetts at Boston 
Harbor Campus 
Boston, MA 


Battelle. 1983. Benthic Communities at Three Stations Adjacent to Runways at Logan 
Airport. Report to the Massachusetts Port Authority, Boston, MA. 

Becker, D.S. and K.K. Chew. 1983. Fish-Benthos Coupling in Sewage Enriched Marine 
Environments. Unpublished Final Report. NOAA Project No. 
NA80RAD00050. 

Boehm, P.D., W. Steinhauer, and 3. Brown. 1984. Organic Pollutant Biogeochemistry 
Studies Northeast U.S. Marine Environment. Part I. The State of Organic 
Pollutant (PCB, PAH, Coprastanol) Contamination of the Boston Harbor, 
Massachuetts Bay-Cape Cod Bay System: Sediment and Biota. Battelle New 
England Marine Research Laboratory. Report to NOAA, Sandy Hook 
Laboratory. 

Camp Dresser & McKee. October 1981. Report on Combined Sewer Overflows in the 
Dorchester Bay Area. Vol. II—Environmental Assessment for the Metropolitan 
District Commission. 

C.E. Maguire, Inc. 1984. Boston Harbor Quality Baseline for the SDEIS on Boston Harbor 
Wastewater Facilities Siting. 52 pp. 

C.E. Maguire, Inc. 1984. Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Report on 
Siting of Wastewater Treatment Facilities for Boston Harbor. Prepared for 
U.S. EPA-Region 1, Boston, MA. Vols. I and II. 

Chesmore, A.P., S.A. Testaverde, and F.P. Richards. 1971. A Study of the Marine 
Resources of Dorchester Bay. Mono. Ser. No. 10. Massachusetts Division of 
Marine Fisheries, Boston, MA. 44 pp. 

Chesmore, A.P., D.J. Brown, and R.D. Anderson. 1972. A Study of the Marine Resources 
of Lynn-Saugus Harbor. Mono. Ser. No. 11. Massachsuetts Division of Marine 
Fisheries, Boston, MA . 40 pp. 


125 


Cortell, J.M. and Assoc. 1980. Final Environmental Impact Report. Massport Seaport 
Development. Boston Marine Industrial Park, South Boston, MA. Appendices. 
Jason M. Cortell and Assoc. Inc., Waltham, MA. 

Cowardin, L.M., V. Carter, F.C. Golet, and E.T. LaRoe. 1979. Classification of Wetlands 
and Deepwater Habitats of the United States. FWS/OBS-79/31. Performed 
for the Office of Biological Services, Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. 
Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 103 pp. 

Deland, M. March 1985. Decision Document Denying the M.D.C. Application for a Section 
301(h) waiver of the Federal Clean Water Act. 

EG<3cG WASC Oceanographic Services. 1984. Oceanographic Study of Various Outfall 
Siting Options for the Deer Island Treatment Plant. Report prepared for 
Havens and Emerson/Parsons Brinckerhoff, Boston, MA. 

ERCO/Energy Resources Co., Inc. 1981. Compliance of Sewage Sludge Disposal Criteria. 

Appendix E. Prepared for the Mass. District Commission and Havens and 
Emerson, Inc. 

Federal Water Pollution Control Administration (FWPCA). April 1969. Proceedings, 
Conference in the Matter of Pollution of the Navigable Waters of Boston 
Harbor and its Tributaries—-2nd Session held at Boston, Massachusetts on April 
30, 1969. U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, DC. 

Fitzgerald, M.G. 1980. Anthropogenic influence on the sedimentary regime of an urban 
estuary-Boston Harbor. Ph.D. Thesis. Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution WHOI-80-38. 

Gilbert, T.R., A.M. Clay, and C. Karp. 1976. Distribution of Polluted Materials in 
Massachusetts Bay. New England Aquarium for the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts Department of Water Pollution Control. 

Haedrich, R.L. and S.O. Haedrich. 1974. A Seasonal Survey of the Fishes in the Mystic 
River, a Polluted Estuary in Downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Estuarine and 
Coastal Marine Science 2: 59-73. 

Harris, L.G. 1976. Field studies on benthic communities in the New England Offshore 
Mining Environmental Study (NOMES). Final Report for Environmental 
Research Laboratories, NOAA. 130 pp. 

Havens and Emerson, Inc. 1981. Compliance of Sewage-Sludge Disposal with the Ocean 
Discharge Criteria. 

Havens and Emerson, Inc. 1981. Review of Municipal Wastewater Sludge Composting. 
Prepared for the Metropolitan District Commission. Appendix C. 


126 


Havens and Emerson, Inc. 1982. Wastewater Sludge Management Update. Summary 
Report. 

Havens and Emerson, Inc. and Environmental Research and Technology. 1982. Sludge 
Management Update. Air Quality Summary. Appendix B. Prepared for the 
Metropolitan District Commission. 

Havens and Emerson, Inc. 1982. Wastewater Sludge Management Update. Wastewater 
Sludge Incineration Issues and Recommendations. Appendix D. 

Havens and Emerson/Parsons Brinckerhoff. 1984. Deer Island Facilities Plan. Volume I. 

Fast-Track Improvements. Prepared for the Massachusetts District 
Commission. 

Havens and Emerson, et al. 1985. Special Ocean Sludge Disposal Permit Application. 

Prepared for the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority, Sewerage Division. 

Issac, R.A. and J. Delaney. 1972. Toxic Element Survey. Progress Report No. 1. 
Massachusetts Division of Water Pollution Control. Publication No. 6108. 

Iwanowicz, H.R., R.D. Anderson, and B.A. Ketschke. 1973. A Study of the Marine 
Resources of Hingham Bay. Mono. Ser. No. 14. Massachusetts Division of 
Marine Fisheries, Boston, MA. 40 pp. 

Jerome, Jr., W.C., A.P. Chesmore, and C.O. Anderson, Jr. 1966. A Study of the Marine 
Resources of Quincy Bay. Mono. Ser. No. 2. Massachusetts Division of Marine 
Fisheries, Boston, MA. 62 pp. 

Kales, E. 1976. All about Boston Harbor Islands. Captain George's Inc., Millis, MA. 120 

pp. 

Kildow, T. 1981. Boston Harbor Management Study. A Final Report. Report Number: 
MITSG 81-15. 

Landrum and Brown. May 1971. Boston-Logan International Airport Environmental 
Impact Study Vol. 1 and Vol. 11. 

Marine Environmental Services (MES). 1970. Ecological Field Survey in the Mystic River, 
Massachusetts, September 1970. Prepared for Stone and Webster Engineering 
Corp., Hanover, NH. 29 pp. 

Marine Environmental Services (MES). September 1972a. Ecological Field Survey in the 
Mystic River, Massachusetts, June 1972. Prepared for Stone and Webster 
Engineering Corp., Hanover, NH, 23 pp. 


127 


Marine Environmental Services (MES). 1972c. Ecological Field Survey in the Mystic 
River. Prepared for Stone and Webster Engineering Corp., Hanover, NH, 25 
PP- V 

Marine Environmental Services (MES). 1973. Ecological field survey in the Mystic River, 
Massachusetts, March 1973. Prepared for Stone and Webster Engineering 
Corp., Hanover, NH 25 pp. 

Marine Environmental Services (MES). 1976a. Ecological Field Survey in the Mystic 
River. Stone and Webster Engineering Corp., Hanover, NH 25 pp. 

Marine Environmental Services (MES). 1976b. Ecological Field Survey of Massachusetts 
Bay. New England Aquarium, Central Wharf, Boston, Massachusetts. 
Prepared for Massachusetts Division of Water Pollution Control. 

Marine Environmental Services (MES). 1977a. Ecological Field Survey in the Mystic 
River. Prepared for Stone and Webster Engineering Corp., Hanover, NH. 25 

pp. 

Marine Environmental Services (MES). 1977b. Ecological Field Survey in the Mystic 
River. Prepared for Stone and Webster Engineering Corp., Hanover, NH. 25 

pp. 

Massachusetts, DEQE-Div. Water Pollution Control. 1970. Boston Harbor Pollution 
Survey - 1968. Publication No. 1M-6-71-049858, DWPC. 

Massachusetts, DEQE-Div. Water Pollution Control. 1976. Charles Basin 1974 Water 
Quality Survey Data. 

Massachusetts, DEQE-Div. Water Pollution Control. 1982. Water Quality Survey Data 
and Wastewater Discharge Data. Publication No. 13944-37-100-12-82-CR, 
DWPC, Westborough, MA. 

Massachusetts, DEQE-Div. Water Pollution Control. 1984. Boston Harbor Water Quality 
and Wastewater Discharge Data. Publication No. 13984-50-50-3-85-CR, 
DWPC, Westborough, MA. 

Massachusetts Water Resource Authority. 1985. Final Environmental Impact Report on 
Siting of Wastewater Treatment Facilities for Boston Harbor. Volumes I & II. 

McCavitt, L., ed. 1981. Getting There: A recreational Guide to the South Shore 
Waterfront, Hingham to Plymouth. Published by the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Office and the Office of Coastal 
Resource Management. Boston, MA. 70 pp. 


128 


McGrath, R.A., 3. A. Blake, and N. Maciolek-Blake. 1982. Benthic Communities in Boston 
Harbor in Relation to Nut Island and Deer Island Sewage Treatment Facilities. 
Battelle New England Marine Research Laboratory for Metcalf and Eddy, Inc. 

Mencher, E., R.A. Copeland, and H. Payson. 1986. Surficial sediments of Boston Harbor, 
Massachusetts. 3. Sed. Petrol. 38: 79-86. 

Metcalf 6c Eddy, Inc. 1979. Commonwealth of Massachusetts Metropolitan District 

Commission. Section 301(h) Application for Modification of Secondary 
Treatment Requirements for its Deer Island and Nut Island Effluent 
Discharges into Marine Waters. Five Volumes. Submitted to the U.S. EPA. 

Metcalf 6c Eddy, Inc. 1982. Commonwealth of Massachusetts Metropolitan District 

Commission. Application for Modification of Secondary Treatment 

Requirements for its Deer Island and Nut Island Effluent Discharges into 
Marine Waters. Addenda 1-3. Submitted to the U.S. EPA. 

Metcalf 6c Eddy, Inc. 1983. Commonwealth of Massachusetts Metropolitan District 

Commission. Application for Modification of Secondary Treatment 

Requirements for its Deer Island and Nut Island Effluent Discharges into 
Marine Waters. Executive Summary. Submitted to the U.S. EPA. 

Metcalf 6c Eddy, Inc. 1984. Commonwealth of Massachusetts Metropolitan District 

Commission. Plan of Study for Revised Application for Modification of 
Secondary Treatment Requirements for the Deer Island and Nut Island 
Effluent Discharges into Marine Waters. Submitted to the U.S. EPA. 

Metcalf 6c Eddy, Inc. 1984. Commonwealth of Massachusetts Metropolitan District 

Commission. Revised Application of a Waiver of Secondary Treatment for the 
Nut Island and Deer Island Treatment Plants. Five volumes. Submitted to the 
U.S. EPA. 

Metcalf 6c Eddy, Inc. October 1984. Supplementary summer data for a revised application 
for Modification of Secondary Treatment Requirements. 

Murchelano, R. A., and R.E. Wolke. 1983. Epizootic Carcinoma in Winter Flounder, 
Pseudopleuronectes americanus . Science 228: 387-389. 

New England Aquarium. March 1974. A bibliography of Boston Harbor and its Tributaries 
with Selected Annotations. Central Wharf, Boston, MA. 

Normandeau Associates. February 1974. Studies of Water Quality and Aquatic Biota in 
the Eastern Metropolitan Area: An Annotated Bibliography. Prepared for the 
Army Corps of Engineers, New England Division, Waltham, Massachusetts. 
Normandeau Assoc., Manchester, NH. 


129 



O’Brien and Gere. 1982. Combined Sewer Overflow Project Inner Harbor Area Facilities 
Plan. Volume Ill-Book 3. Appendices. O'Brien and Gere Engineers, Inc. 
Boston, MA. 

O'Malley, Majorie, ed. 1983. Boston Harbor Access Guide. Published by the 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Office and the 
Office of Coastal Resource Management, Boston, MA. 40 pp. 

Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. 1982. Massachusetts Barrier Beaches. 

Technical Report PCCS82-1. Prepared for Massachusetts Coastal Zone 
Management Office, Boston, MA. 57 pp. 

Rowe, G.T., P.T. Polloni, and 3.1. Rowe. 1972. Benthic Community parameters in the 
Lower Mystic River. Int. Revue, ges. Hydrobiol. 57: 573-584. 

Ruckelshaus, W.D. June 30, 1983. Tentative Denial of the MDC Application for a Section 
301(h) Modified Permit. 

SEA Consultants, Inc. 1986. Residuals Management Facilities Plan. Methodology for 
Phase II Evaluation of Alternatives Scope of Work Proposed Schedule. Report 
for the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority. 

SEA Consultants, Inc. 1986. Residuals Management Facilities Plan. Interim Report 
Number 2. Initial Screening of Alternatives. Report for the Massachusetts 
Water Resource Authority. 

SEA Consultants, Inc. 1986. Residuals Management Facilities Plan. Interim Report 
Number 3. Methodology of Evaluating Alternatives. Report for the 
Massachusetts Water Resource Authority. 

Smith, Jr., L.B., ed. 1983. Barrier Beach Management Sourcebook. Published by the 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Office, Boston, 
MA. 26 pp. 

Stewart, R.K. 1968. Biological Aspects of Water Quality, Charles River and Boston 
Harbor, Massachusetts. July-August 1967. Fed. Water Poll. Control Admin. 

Tetra Tech, Inc. 1980. Technical Review of Deer Island and Nut Island Treatment Plants 
Section 301(h) Application for Modification of Secondary Treatment 
Requirements for Discharge into Marine Waters. Prepared for the U.S. EPA. 
413 pp. 

Tetra Tech, Inc. 1984. Technical Review of Boston's Deer Island and Nut Island Sewage 
Treatment Plants Section 301(h) Application for Modification of Secondary 
Treatment Requirements for Discharge into Marine Waters. Prepared for U.S. 
EPA. 268 pp. 


130 


Urban Systems Research & Engineering, Inc. 1984. Comparison of Alternatives for 
Disposal of Sludge from MDC's Deer Island and Nut Island Primary Wastewater 
Treatment Plants. Draft Prepared for Executive Office of Environmental 
Affairs, Boston, MA. 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England Division. 1981. Environmental Assessment 
for Boston Harbor Maintenance Dredging. Waltham, MA. 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England Division. 1978. Environmental Assessment 
for Cohasset Harbor, MA, Sidecast Maintenance Dredging, Waltham, MA. 10 

pp. 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England Division. 1980. Rivers and Harbors Projects. 
Waltham, MA. Vol. 2 of 3. 

U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Biological Services. 

1977. National Wetlands Inventory, Maps of Lynn, Boston North and South, 
Hull, Weymouth, Nantasket Beach, and Cohasset, MA. 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1978. Draft Environmental Impact Statement on 
the Upgrading of the Boston Metropolitan Area Sewerage System. Vols. 1 and 

2 . 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1979. Environmental Impact Statement. MDC 
Proposed Sludge Management Plan, Metropolitan District Commission, Boston, 
MA. Parts A and B. 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1984. Supplemental Environmental Impact 
Statement/Report on Siting of Wastewater Treatment Facilities for Boston 
Harbor. Vols. 1 and 2. 

Wallace, G.T. , J.H. Waugh and K.A. Garner. 1986. Metal distribution in a major urban 
estuary (Boston Harbor) impacted by ocean disposal. Proceedings of the Fifth 
International Ocean Disposal Symposium, Oregon State University, Corvallis, 
Oregon, September 10-14, 1984. in press. 

Walter J. Hickey Associates, Inc. 1980 (Limited). Environmental Impact Report for 
Channel Dredging, Lynn Harbor, Lynn, MA. Prepared for Department of 
Environmental Quality, Division of Waterways, North Quincy, MA. 28 pp. 

White, R.J. 1972. The Distribution and concentration of selected metals in Boston Harbor 
sediments. M.S. Thesis, Northeastern University, Boston, MA. 103 pp. 


131 





















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